Mortal Wounds
by Javanyet
Summary: As Nick struggles to help Maura cope with a traumatic loss, grief drives her to a vengeful extreme.
1. Chapter 1

When Janette found Maura to tell her that Schanke was here to see her, she took the news with puzzlement but not alarm. Any other woman whose cop lover's partner showed up unexpectedly at work could expect serious distress, but Maura after all didn't share the same concerns for Nick's safety as Myra Schanke would for her husband.

"Nick's _fine_," he began, before she could say hello. "I just wanted you to know that first. But he's doing a canvass, so I came by to ask for a little input."

It was nearly two hours to closing time, crowded but calm. "What can I do for you?"

"Well we found this victim by the waterfront, near that video store on Kingston. Looks like a mugging, no wallet, beat up and stabbed though they haven't made it official yet."

Maura made a face. "Uh, okay, thanks for sharing, but what's it got to do with me?"

Schanke handed her a Raven matchbook, which she hesitated to touch. "S'okay, it's been dusted and lifted." She looked blankly at him. "Look inside."

There inside the cover was her name and cell phone number. The handwriting was familiar enough to give her a turn.

"I don't give my number out to customers, Schank. And nobody else would dare."

Schanke had seen her expression change. "You look like you saw something... handwriting maybe?"

"Maybe. So a mugging victim has my phone number, what now?"

"There's no wallet so no i.d., so if you think you can handle it maybe you can take a look, see if you recognize him or not. Maybe he picked up the matchbook from someone else who does know you."

"Uh, well I don't get away for a while... oh all right." She called Miklos over and told him she had to go. He was always a good choice to ride herd on the crowd.

A nagging doubt nibbled at the back of Maura's mind. "So this guy, what's he look like?"

"Tall, lean, mid-twenties maybe. Black hair. _Extreme _sideburns, like out of the last century."

Maura gulped a breath and dropped her head back against the car seat.

"What? Sound familiar?"

"Yes. Well no. It couldn't be him. Near the video store, you said, Hollywood North, right?"

"Yeah. About 20 feet up from the entrance."

"Heading toward Victoria Park."

"Yeah, that direction."

Maura rode a wave of nausea. It couldn't possibly be. "Nah, it's nobody I know. I mean, I a friend of mine manages Hollywood North, but he doesn't work Friday nights. Fridays and Saturdays off, like religion."

By the time they got to the morgue, she'd just about convinced herself. No way. Not him. He didn't _work_ Fridays. But he didn't come to see her tonight either, during the lull between ten and eleven when everyone was deciding which club to crowd into next. She'd gone out back to look for him, though it wasn't as if they had it in a datebook or something. Their friendship had come about naturally, by accident, and just settled into both their lives barely noticed. Except in its absence.

But then she saw the edge of a sneaker peeking from under the corner of the sheet on the gurney. Black, red whoosh, grey sole. No, those are all over the place. Liar. He got it from Ebay, and a long hunt it was too for size twelves.

"Schanke, I don't think you really need me, I'm sure it's nobody I know." Natalie noticed her sudden nervousness.

"Are you okay? This will just take a minute, but if you don't think you can manage it... it's not too gruesome really." And after all, she knew that Maura had seen things to fry the mind of the average mortal, even a police detective.

"Okay, well I'm here I guess. Go ahead." She really believed she wasn't holding her breath, totally convinced it was some stranger because he didn't _work_ Fridays. She believed it right up until the moment Natalie lifted the sheet and Maura saw Christopher's too-beautiful, strangely natural looking face. Just a few scrapes and a cut or two, a bruise under the right eye, closed thank god. If she saw those brown eyes open and staring there was no telling what she'd do. Just the same, something deep inside of her locked down tight with a sound she swore anyone could hear. In a flat voice she said, "Christopher Martin. He's, uh, 24, American, manages Hollywood North. He lives alone off of Victoria Park Avenue, I can't seem to remember what number. He has a real record player, loads of vinyl..." She trailed off, not seeing the peculiar way Schanke and Natalie were looking at her. Her voice got clearer. "No family in the city, he has," and here her tone grew vague again, "a brother, two sisters, mom and dad in New Hampshire. They all try to get together for holidays, but everyone's so far apart..." She reached a hesitant hand to touch his face, but stopped just short, then withdrew. He wasn't there anyway, not anymore.

Schanke took a step closer. "Maura, are you okay? Were you guys close or something?" For once there was no agenda in his voice.

Maura tore her eyes away from the serene (deceased) face, and Natalie replaced the sheet. "Kind of. Not really. I dunno," she swallowed back the crack in her throat. "He'd come by Raven on Friday nights during the lull, we'd hang out back and talk. I'd go by the video store and we'd play Trivial Pursuit on Saturday afternoons... 'death match'," she added in a fading voice. "Always to the last move, he's the only one besides Nick who could match me."

Natalie exchanged a look with Schanke that said get her out of here.

"Come on, Maura, let's go back to the precinct and we can write down the details okay? All right with you?"

"Yeah." Her voice took on a distant quality. "Will Nick be back soon?"

"Yeah, sweetheart, he's coming back right away," and as he steered Maura out he door he looked over his shoulder, "Call him," he mouthed silently and Natalie reached for the phone.

There hadn't been time to tell Nick about the matchbook, so Schanke had left Nick to his door-to-door and street interviews with the uniforms and went looking for Maura himself. Now he had finished typing the information Maura had given him on the young victim, and though she obviously had an attachment to the kid she was as trussed up as a Christmas goose. Not convincing, though, and not good. He set her up with some spring water in an interrogation room, sat with her for a while and then went to look for his partner.

"Where the hell you been?" he shot as Nick entered the precinct room half an hour later, which was nearly an hour and a half since Maura had identified the victim. Schanke had checked on her from time to time, but she just sat there with her hands folded on the table as if she were waiting for class to start, looking at nothing.

"Earning the taxpayers' money, Schank, and what did you find in _your_ travels?" It had been a long and frustrating canvass that yielded nothing useful, and his cell phone battery had died just as he saw the coroner's office number on the caller i.d., with no alternative phone within reach.

Schanke dragged Nick a little way up the hall. "I found this on the vic," and he showed Nick the matchbook, bound for evidence. "You were busy so I went to Raven and brought Maura down to have a look, since he had her cell phone number and all. Nick she _knows_ the guy, says they were Trivial Pursuit buddies or something. She said he was from New Hampshire, so we zapped his picture to the state p.d., turns out one of the officers knows the parents. Christopher Martin."

"Christopher," Nick muttered with a grim expression, "I never met him, so I didn't know what he looked like. Maura talked about him. A lot. Kept saying he should come by some night for a movie." He handed the matchbook back to Schanke. "Where is she, you didn't bring her home?"

"When are you gonna give me some credit, Knight? She's in interrogation one for the past hour or so, I've been checking in but she's pretty zoned out."

"I don't wonder." He knew too well the depth Maura's attachment to Christopher, the only real friend she counted among mortals. Christopher knew all about her, and Nick, and the Community, and took it all in stride with no particular additional curiosity. Nick was so pleased she'd found a mortal friend, someone who shared the things that he and Maura could never quite exactly connect on. Someone, as she'd once said, who "has an expiration date, just like me". Nick and Maura would joke about the how any other man would be jealous of her relationship with this young good looking guy, but Nick took to heart the significance that Maura had finally found someone of her own kind that she need hide, and fear, nothing from. Such individuals were rare in her life on either side of the "divide". Nick peered through the wired glass window of the interrogation room and saw what Schanke had described. He entered silently and closed the door quietly behind him before kneeling next to Maura's chair.

"Doucette, I'm so sorry." She reached for him in a blind rush of tears. "I love you, Sweet, I love you," he told her over and over, the only words that seemed worth saying as she clung to him like a drowning victim and slipped from the chair to the floor where she could bury herself against him. She reared back suddenly and seized him by his lapels, holding his face inches from hers as she begged him desperately, "It's not him, it can't be him, he doesn't _work_ Fridays, Nick please let me look again because I think maybe I made a mistake, you know?" It felt to her that she sounded very reasonable, after all people made mistakes all the time which was why eyewitness testimony was such hell in a courtroom. Nick framed her face with his hands, holding her too firmly, to force her to look in his eyes, "Listen to me, they wired the photo to the New Hampshire state police, his parents identified it. There's no doubt, it's your friend Christopher."

She broke from him in a rage, seized her vacated chair and flung it against the wall. "_NO!_" she screamed, "_Not him!_" The explosion of noise drew anxious faces to the window, and Schanke pulled the door open, one foot in.

"Get out!" Nick hissed over his shoulder and Schanke retreated, herding the others away.

"Nick's lady, that mugging vic tonight was a good friend. Leave 'em alone, okay? He'll handle it."

Captain Cohen emerged from her office. "What the hell was that?" Schanke explained again.

Cohen ran a weary hand over her eyes. "Looks like it's time to hate my job again. Did he give you his notes from the canvass?"

"He dropped 'em on his desk when he came in , but went straight in to see Maura."

She cast a look at the door down the hall, loud voices emerging but no more crashes. "Take them, then, and you can handle the report. When things calm down, tell him I said he can call in from home if he needs a few personal days."

"I need to _SEE_ him!" Maura shouted furiously, so out of control that Nick had to yell back just to be heard.

"You won't see anything different, Maura, it's been confirmed, it's Christopher Martin! I'm not going to let you torture yourself by going over there again, it's pointless."

Maura pounded the table, beside herself. "LET_ me?_ I don't need your fucking permission to do _ANYTHING_!" She made for the door but he cut her off. She fought him like a wild thing, still she was no match for his unnatural strength as he pinned her to the wall. Though unable to hypnotize her as he could any other mortal, at close range Nick was quite able to command her attention.

"Maura, stop this," he told her fiercely. She struggled against him, and abruptly gave up as she looked him in the eye. Why was she doing this, she wondered even as she fought Nick, as if tearing the world apart could have undone what was finished, removed Christopher from the morgue and put him in the alley with her tonight, to solve the problems of the universe. Contrasting with Nick's rough treatment, what she saw in his eyes was a determination to protect her, to do whatever it took to keep her from hurting herself beyond what was already happening. "Don't fight me. You're hurt, you're scared, I know, but rage won't help." She didn't want to listen. Rage drowned out the noise, filled up the black space that had opened inside of her. But the demon that had exploded in her was already fading, and she dropped her head back against he wall. "I'm falling," she told him in a small voice, "I'm falling, off a cliff, all alone."

While losing no power, his hold on her gentled. "No, love, you're not alone. I'll catch you."

Her mood shifted again, cajoling. "Please can we go back? I need to say goodbye, I never said goodbye to him." Seeing his doubt, she persisted. "Please, Nick, I'm not crazy anymore. Please."

He stepped back from her, and dropped his hands to hold both of hers. Contact felt terribly important to him right now. "Let me call Natalie. If she hasn't started to... work, I'll take you back." Maura shuddered, and looked sick. Nick touched her face again to hold her drifting attention. "I'm sorry. But you're not listening very well, and I don't want to fight with you. Okay?" He stepped back to look closely at her, and she nodded. "Okay. But if he's still there like before, we can go?"

"I promise." He went to the corner and flipped open his cell phone to call Natalie.

"Are you crazy, Nick?" Natalie was aghast. How could he go along with this? "You can't really think it's good for her to get _another_ good look at her dead friend, do you?"

"Look, Nat, she went from screaming it wasn't him, to begging to say goodbye, all in less than five minutes. If it will help her process it, I can't say no."

"Sure you can. She's not thinking clearly, be the grownup here and just say _no_ and take her home."

"Nat... just tell me, have you started to work on him yet?"

She hesitated, but told him "No, he's second after a car accident. But hell, Nick, can't you just lie to her and say I've started?"

"You know better than that. We'll be over in about twenty minutes." He returned to Maura who stood where he'd left her, against the wall by the door. "Natalie says it's fine, we can come over now. But after that, we're going home, no arguments." He peered into her face to make sure she was listening. "Okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks for not treating me like some psycho."

Nick put his arms around her, kissed her cheek. "You're not some psycho, Sweet. Come on. Don't pay any mind to anyone in the office, you know they're gonna stare." She nodded and took his hand, holding his arm with the other, and stared resolutely at the floor as they left the precinct. When they'd reached the morgue she reached for his hand again as they entered the building.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked before they went in.

"Yeah. I owe him that." She insisted on going into the room alone, leaving a very worried Nick outside in the lab with Natalie.

As Natalie opened her mouth to speak Nick cut her off. "Before you ask, I don't know. I don't know how she's doing, except all over the map. You should have seen it, Nat, she just about put a chair through the wall of the interrogation room. You'd think with all my intimate knowledge of death I _might_ know what to do with her, but I don't have a clue."

Natalie smiled reassuringly and put an arm around his slumped shoulders. "You know, sometimes you seem to forget Maura's mortal. You have a completely different perspective on death and loss because you've been through so much of it. You live forever, so the odds are just in your favor that no matter how many people you leave behind sooner or later somebody special will cross your path again. But when we mortals lose someone special, we don't see an endless opportunity to find that kind of connection again. Add to that Maura's 'difficult' past, and it must be even more miserable for her."

Nick sounded a little impatient with the philosophical direction Natalie was taking. "Well that's all very enlightening, but it doesn't give me any ideas how to help her."

"The most important thing you have to do is to get around your need to control everything." Nick looked sharply at her, and stepped away. "Nick, please, I don't mean you're on some power trip." She followed to stand close to him again. "I mean someone you love is in more pain than you can bear to see. You can't reach inside her and just make it go away. If you let that frustrate you it's just gonna make things worse."

He nodded. "Yeah, okay. But there must be something I can do besides keeping my omnipotence-complex in check."

Natalie rubbed his shoulder. "What you're doing _now _is what she needs most. Be with her, make sure she doesn't _do_ anything reckless no matter how she feels. She feels really alone right now, remind her she's not. Just, I don't know, just get between her and any extra hurt you see her heading for, she can be pretty impulsive under pressure." Seeing him roll his eyes in acknowledgment, she continued, "Grief can drive a person to crazy things. Keep her safe in spite of herself until she can heal." She sighed. "Does any of that make sense?"

"Yeah Nat, it does," he leaned over to kiss her cheek. "You're right, suddenly my 'limitless' powers are useless, and I'm not liking it at all. When I first walked in on her, and I saw that face... I just want to save her from this."

"For you that might be the hardest part. There are no rules here, Nick, you just have to take it as it comes. You know her better than anybody, so the best you can do is follow her lead whatever it is. The only _wrong _thing to do is nothing."

He shook his head and with a bitter smile observed, "I keep hoping to stumble across some instruction manual for life with a mortal, but she seems to have hidden it really well."

"Oh I suspect she's making it up as she goes along, just like you." Natalie hugged Nick hard. "You know, detective, on your worst day you're one of the most perceptive and caring people I've ever known. There's no way you _can't_ make it easier for her."

Just then Maura entered the lab, very still and quiet. Nick went to her immediately, smoothed her already-smooth hair.

"Okay?"

She shook her head tightly, staring at the floor. "No." Remembering her manners she turned to Natalie and forced a smile. "Thanks. You could have said no, and told him to take me home and put me to bed."

Natalie suppressed a twinge of guilt. "It wasn't so much to ask. For what it's worth, I'm gonna help find out who did this."

Maura nodded a little vaguely, caught inside her head. Everything seemed to make her feel dizzy. She looked mutely at Nick as if to ask what happened next.

"Come on, Sweet, let's go home." He spoke to her as if they were the only two in the room, but reached back to squeeze Natalie's hand as they left. Maura leaned her head against the car window, eyes closed, on the ride home. Nick held her hand every minute, but felt the distance he couldn't cross even if he were mortal.

Alone in that cold room with Christopher's body, Maura had tried to talk to him, to say goodbye, but couldn't manage to conjure his presence even in her heart. The thing lying there was nobody she knew, everything that had been Christopher bled out of existence with his life and the meat that was left behind was as empty as she felt. Nick had been right, it was pointless. When they got home she felt strangely out of place, as if the everyday bits of her life weren't in synch. It was all familiar, but she didn't seem a part of it, like those puzzles with the pictures painted on the little plastic tiles. If one shifts out of place or gets lost, it doesn't make sense anymore. She really, really wished she knew exactly what to tell Nick to do for her, even the smallest thing that would calm his own feelings but her mind was as empty as her heart. He took her coat and purse and put them away, everyday actions that also didn't fit.

"I need to call Janette, to explain."

"It'll keep until tomorrow." It was 4am, already "tomorrow", but she knew what he meant. The sun would be rising soon, and anyway Janette was very liberal regarding Maura's presence. Miklos would have told her that Maura had left with Schanke, and Janette would assume she was engaged in some police matter. Which would be correct. She looked at Nick, really looked at him, for the first time since he'd found her at the precinct. His face was drawn and troubled, bruise-like shadows beginning to appear beneath his eyes.

"You're hungry, go get yourself something," she told him, as if suggesting he go make himself a sandwich. "I'm sorry I made such a scene." She knew it must have hurt him to manhandle her like that.

"Don't be sorry. Right now you're entitled to just about anything. I just don't want you to hurt yourself more."

After he'd consumed two bottles in rapid succession, taking care to drop in the capsicum elixir, he returned to find Maura still standing in the middle of the living room.

"Jesus, Bats, is there more? Is there more hurt than this?" She sounded and looked puzzled. "It's like," she struggled for an image, "like I'm full of broken glass, and all I can feel is the edges cutting me." She sat down on the sofa then. "Maybe if I sit still, it'll stop."

No rules, Nick repeated to himself as he joined her. Follow her lead, but she didn't know where she was going herself. "C'mere," he invited softly and when she didn't move he slid over and gathered her up without waiting for a reaction. "Just tell me where it hurts, Sweet, and we'll get it to stop." Empty promises hadn't been on his agenda, but maybe a few loving fairy tales were what she needed right now. "I'm so tired," she whispered and he realized she'd been up nearly 20 hours, having risen early to get errands done so she could have Saturday free to spend at Hollywood North, in yet another Death Match. "You want a ride upstairs?" Ordinarily she resisted his usually-playful suggestion regardless of her exhaustion, as she resisted most anything that meant not doing for herself.

"Okay. Can we fly?"

"You bet." He picked her up and they rose slowly until he cleared the gallery railing, then landed easily in the bedroom.

"How's that?"

"Fine."

Nick opened her top dresser drawer and pulled out her most comfortable flannel pj's, the blue ones covered with Grateful Dead teddy bears. "Iko-iko work for you?" She managed a nod. Nick changed and returned from his dressing room to find Maura sitting still on the bed, pajamas in her lap, as if she'd gotten lost on the way.

"Mind if I help?" he asked. Christ, how she _hated_ it when he offered to do things for her, but this time she said "okay", and acquiesced as he helped her undress and got her into the soft flannels. He knelt in front of her then, looking into her eyes, trying to gain access. "You know I'm here, for whatever you need. Even if you don't know, we'll figure it out. It'll get better, I promise."

"Just not yet." There was miserable resignation in her voice. He reached out to cup her cheek.

"No, Sweet, not yet. I don't know when." She leaned forward then, laid her face in his shoulder, just to rest, and he guided her up and managed to slip her under the covers, lit the candle, and instead of leaving her to go around to his side he carefully climbed over her to settle in the middle of the bed and hold her, head tucked under his chin, kissing her hair and rubbing her back.

"It just hurts so much." Her voice was so quiet and small, so completely unlike her. He tightened his embrace.

"I know, Maura. I wish I could make it stop."

"Just don't go, okay? Don't leave me alone."

That it even occurred to her was a shock. She knew he couldn't die, of course, so the usual generalization didn't apply. But leaving... gone is gone, he supposed, and he'd left her alone for long enough himself that she'd remember how it felt.

"I'd never." She sighed then, and seemed to relax a little, more folded up against him than holding on, completely submissive. It made him uneasy, because he knew it was unnatural for her and so could turn around at any moment.

Nick wasn't sure why he woke so abruptly until he realized he was alone. The clock read 7am. He focused his hearing to discern where Maura might be and what she was doing. He located her heartbeat and the quietest of sounds, a distant whimpering as if someone were trying very hard to make no sound at all. He found her sitting on the stairs, exactly halfway down. Her arms were wrapped around her drawn up knees, she was doubled over and rocking back and forth as if trying to comfort herself. When he sat next to her she turned her head to the side to look at him, still rocking. "What's happening to me, Nicolas? I don't know what's _happening_."

He slid close to her and wrapped his arms around because it seemed to be the only thing he knew how to do for her. "Don't be scared, baby." He'd never called her that before, it always seemed patronizing and even now it felt strange in his mouth. "I'm here."

"I wanna see him again, I don't want him to be gone," and he thought she'd cry, but she didn't. Except for the first hysterical burst of tears before her rage she hadn't cried at all. It worried Nick. Emotions that strong weren't meant to be mastered for long; he knew too well it was easy for grief to turn into something darker.

"I know, I'm so sorry," as he took over the rocking for her. He helped her back to bed and she lay with him dry-eyed and quiet, while the best he could offer were kisses and the repeated promise that it wouldn't be like this forever. Finally she fell asleep curled on her side spooned snugly back in Nick's arms, his hands folded around hers under her chin.

She was in a dark, cold place. Her feet were on the ground, or so she thought, but there were no landmarks, no light, nothing to help her fix herself in one place. "Nick?" she called experimentally. Nothing. She couldn't thing of anyone else to call out to. She wanted to sit down, but didn't know where "down" was. So she walked, or thought she did. She was so _cold_. And then she heard it, very distant and faint. Whistling, but more than music. A ringing sound that was colder even than she felt, it rolled on and on and grew louder even as she tried to walk away from it, then turned quickly and stood still.

"LaCroix," she whispered to the emptiness.

"Yes."

"It was you, then."

"No, doucette, not me. I see no advantage in killing your friends."

"Who, then?" He would know, he knew everything.

"Someone he trusted. He'll be found soon enough, you won't need me for that."

"What, then?" He hadn't come into her dreams for a very long time, not since he'd taken root in the same city, and inhabited the night air, and they'd found their uneasy standoff.

"A favor, I think. You may need a favor only I can grant."

She shook her head. "No. I'd never ask you for anything."

A new laugh, almost gentle in its certitude. "Never is a long time. And you might find me surprisingly generous, given the opportunity."

"I don't understand."

"You will. Time may heal some things, but it changes all. You know where to find me should you feel the need."

She was alone again. And so cold.

She woke warm and secure in Nick's arms, but trembling badly. He had taken care to keep himself above his deepest level of slumber, to respond to whatever she needed. Now he turned her to face him.

"You're cold," he said, reaching to pull up the comforter that had slid away.

"No, I'm okay."

He rubbed up and down her back and arms. "But you're shivering."

She reached around his waist and pressed her face into his shoulder. "It's nothing, Bats. I'm okay. Go back to sleep." He knew she was lying, but let it go.


	2. Chapter 2

A few hours later Nick was returning from the kitchen and two more bottles when he found Maura getting dressed. She'd made the bed and was laying out work clothes for later. He knew she'd slept fitfully at best, and guessed at bad dreams. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face pale.

"What's this? You're planning to go to work?" His tone told her what he thought of that.

She gestured edgily, arguing pre-emptively. "Well what else am I supposed to do? I'm not gonna take to my bed, I'm not _sick_. I need to get back to normal, nothing else makes sense, does it?"

"Come on, be sensible. Something terrible has happened to you,"

She cut him off. "To me? It's Christopher who's dead, not me." Her voice didn't waver, which surprised him.

Nick went to her, suppressing with a mighty effort the urge to start putting her things away again. How often had he seen this need to rush on, in the friends and families of victims? "But _you're _the one left with the loss. You need to give yourself a little time to deal with it. I'm going to call the precinct, get a few days myself."

"And do what? Babysit me? And what does that mean, 'deal with it'. There's no 'deal with it', there's just getting on with it. Christ, Nick, you think I've never lost anyone before?"

"Not like this."

She ignored the comment. "You're not gonna drive me to the club anyway, are you?" She was beginning to get pissed off.

"You're not the only strong will in the house."

It occurred to her she could call Vachon for a lift, but once he knew what had happened he'd be as likely to refuse. These creatures stuck together like vampire Velcro, damn them. She pressed a hand to her forehead. "Okay, so what do you propose? Hanging around staring at the fire, wallowing in angst? Those are your hobbies, not mine." Shit, but that was cruel. He was trying like hell to help, and she was trying like hell to pick a fight so he'd tell her to fuck off. As if that would happen. Nick could grow a hide like a rhino when he felt like it.

With just the barest edge, he replied, "Don't forget guilt and self-doubt." He tried to slow her as she pushed past him but she shook him off, taking the stairs two at a time. He followed more slowly. "How about I make some of that herbal tea you like," he went to the kitchen not waiting for the answer and took down the tin of chamomile, filled the electric kettle and the tea ball and rinsed the pot with hot water from the tap.

"I'm not in the mood for herbal tea, thanks." She slammed onto the couch and played with the blinds, deliberately making the sunlight crawl across the floor until it stopped just short of where Nick stood.

"Jack, then." He sidestepped the bars of light on the floor and reached behind the bar for a rocks glass and the bourbon, pouring a generous measure.

"Neat," he handed it to her as a waiter would, then stood back to regard her calmly. "I'm not going to fight with you. But I'm not going to help you off the deep end, either."

"You just did," she stood in his face and slugged the whole glass – at least a double if not more, Nick figured – down in a single gulp. Maura hadn't eaten since sometime the day before, so the effect was dramatic and immediate.

"Bastard," she slurred as she threw herself back on back on the couch. He took the glass from her hand as she went down and leaned into her face with a grim smile.

"That's right," he announced before returning to the kitchen.

"I really hate you sometimes, you think you're so fucking smart." She tipped over sideways and curled up, scowling.

Nick returned and sat down next to her as if it were just another day off. "Hate me all you want. I love you and I won't _let_ you do this alone. Not that you don't have your own impressive style, in terms of alcohol poisoning and throwing furniture." The words sounded humorous but his expression was serious. As suddenly as it came, her fury deserted her and she groped for his hand. He took both of hers in one of his, scooting over so she lay in his lap, stroking her forehead with his free hand.

"It's like a minefield, isn't it," he told her gently, "that's okay, we'll navigate it together. Blind leading the blind."

"Whether I want to or not."

"No question." He bent to kiss her mouth, grimacing at the taste of bourbon. "Why didn't I suggest vodka," he muttered. She turned her head and kissed his stomach, leaving her face there afterward.

"I know, okay? I know. I'm really, really trying even though it doesn't seem like it."

"Hey," he turned her head. "You don't have to 'try' anything, or be any way." Seeing the earnest way she stared into his eyes he added, "You're nothing you shouldn't be." He slid out from under her and arranged some floor pillows and an afghan in front of the fireplace he'd just lit. "Come on, just rest with me a bit, okay?" She was half drunk by now, so he had to help her.

"I'm sorry, Just Nick," she moaned as he settled them both comfortably amid the pillows and covered them up, her head on his shoulder and his arms close around her. "I'm just no good at this grief shit, you know? I never was. I overcompensate and project, and beat you up for something you can't fix."

"Stop analyzing, Sweet." He tipped her face up to his and planted soft kisses all over. "Just stare into the fire awhile. I'll handle the angst part."

Her lower lip began to tremble, but she wrestled back the emotions that fought to control her. "I didn't mean that."

More kisses. She closed her eyes. He knew for all of her fighting him, she craved the blind comfort of physical affection. "I know. Ssh, it's gonna be all right."

"I wish I knew when," she said vaguely to nobody.

This time she slept soundly, helped along by bourbon and Nick's quiet voice making more promises he had no idea if he could keep.

When the phone rang he grabbed for it on the end table but realized Maura was so deeply asleep he needn't have worried. "Knight," he said quietly.

"Nicolas." Janette. "Maura left with your Mr. Schanke last night and did not return. Since it is unlike her not to call, I simply wondered..." she left the sentence unfinished. "Is she available?" Janette's indirect way of asking if Maura was all right. She would never come right out and express the concern in so many words.

"She's asleep, Janette. Schanke took her to the morgue last night to identify a mugging victim. He turned out to be a close friend, someone who used to see her at the club."

"Oh dear," she sounded genuinely troubled. "You mean young Christophe, don't you?"

"I didn't know if you'd met him."

"I saw him frequently of course, but we spoke only once, he came by when Maura had taken the night off and I persuaded him to stay for a drink. I confess I was not at all pleased when I learned that Maura had told him about us, but he was quite undisturbed by it. He seemed to regard us as nothing more alarming than an exotic ethnic group. An unusual young man. There was some gossip of course, he and Maura shared something the rest of us could not quite define. But it seemed a small thing to indulge her long absences on the nights he visited."

"Yes, Maura told me you 'indulged' her quite a bit."

As if she were defending her reputation Janette protested, "Well after all, it is not as if she had numberless friends disturbing her work. In fact I think Christophe might have been her _only_ true mortal friend." Nick smiled as she shared this as if it were a revelation to him.

"You're right, he was. It was difficult for any of 'us' to grasp the substance of what they shared. I only know she gained something from spending time with him that she couldn't find anywhere else." He heard a sigh.

"And now he is gone... quelle vrai dommage." Again, her sincerity was unmistakable. The line went silent for a moment.

"Janette? Are you still there?"

"Oui, je suis ici. And how is Maura coping with this? She must be... terribly affected."

Nick looked closely at Maura as she lay on his shoulder. Even asleep, she looked bereft.

"I don't think I have the vocabulary for what she's going through. I don't even have an idea."

"I think you do, cheri. We have lost many people who were dear to us."

"But there was always someone else like us, you and I were there for each other, we've always known each other so completely. She has no one."

"She has you, Nicolas."

"It's not the same, Janette. You know it's not. If you were alone among mortals and suffered such a loss, what would you feel? Alone, no matter what they were to you."

On the other end of the phone, Janette couldn't suppress a shudder. She knew exactly what Nick meant, and to consider even the possibility of losing him, of losing their elemental connection, was beyond comprehension. "She will never be entirely alone."

"But I can't help her, Janette, I can't reach her."

"You mean you cannot reach _inside_ of her to stop the pain."

Nick smiled ruefully. "You're not the first to remind me of that. I'm useless, I have the wisdom and power of 800 years and I'm useless to her."

"Not entirely, cheri. You love her. Perhaps that is enough."

"But what if it isn't?"

"You must let it be enough. Who more than we know what we must accept and what we must abandon? We both know that Maura will not let this destroy her."

"If you could see her now," Nick argued.

"I do not need to. I am no stranger to loss, and neither are you. Neither is Maura. She will survive it because she must."

There was an awkward silence, broken by Janette. "Please tell Maura when she wakes that I will not expect her at work until she calls. We will manage without her until she is ready to return."

"She was planning on working tonight. We had quite a disagreement over it."

"But you said she is sleeping. How did you persuade her to change her mind?"

"I didn't. I got her drunk and refused to drive her. I figured Vachon wouldn't pick her up if she was tanked."

He heard Janette's quiet laugh. "Dear Nicolas, so resourceful. Life with a mortal has taught you tricks you had not imagined in 800 years."

"I haven't _needed _them. Suddenly I find myself forced to be creative. Thank you for calling, Janette, I needed to hear your voice. I needed to hear your insight."

"What is mine will always be yours."

As he switched off the phone, Nick felt Maura stir against him. It hadn't been that long, so she couldn't be rested.

"Janette called," he told her before she could pull away and sit up. "She said to take four or five days off," he lied.

"Bullshit. She said I could come back when I want. And I want now."

Nick looked steadily at her, and knew that arguing would just make it harder. "Okay. Go get changed, I'll drive you to work." But he resolved not to return to the precinct for several days, just in case. He stayed at Raven all evening, taking care to keep out of Maura's way.

"You're not gonna _hang around_ all night, are you?" she'd protested when he followed her into the club.

"I haven't visited with Janette in a long time," he explained.

"Bullshit."

"You know," he observed as she headed for the office, "your vocabulary is becoming a little limited."

Janette was surprised to see Maura come in to get the cash box to set up the doors.

"Cherie, what are you doing here?" Janette rose from behind the desk, clearly unsure how to greet her.

"I _work _here," and Maura simply went to the safe and got the things she needed as usual.

"But Nicolas told me," Janette began, only to be cut off.

"I'm sure he did. The world spins on, Janette, nobody knows that better than you."

Janette caught up to her as she got to the door. "Maura," she reached a hand to her shoulder.

Maura spun around. "Don't, please, not you. I don't want 'special' time, I don't want to 'deal with it', I just want to get on. Is that so hard to understand?"

The hand withdrew. "No, cherie, I don't suppose it is. As you wish. If you are feeling yourself, I will always welcome your presence."

But she wasn't "feeling herself" and it was painfully evident to everyone from Derek, who struggled with the set list to avoid every sad song in the band's repertoire, to Vachon, whose brief embrace of greeting was brushed away.

Nonetheless Maura managed to lose herself in the evening, greeting customers and finding blessed relief in dealing with strangers who weren't desperate to find a way to help. Since it was a typically busy Saturday night, there were plenty of strangers to go around. Anyone who didn't know her well would take her for merely having something of an off night, a little distant and cranky but nothing more. She knew Janette was keeping an eye on her. Nick didn't even look in Maura's direction, but he was aware of her every heartbeat even in this crowd. Everything went as well as she could manage, no trouble with the troublemakers even if there was no banter with the regulars. But when she saw Vachon casing up the empties at the end of the night something twisted inside her. Fridays and Saturdays were Christopher's nights to show up, however long or briefly, with a new trivia question or a film for her to share with Nick, or just to talk about life and the world. Shit, she thought, it's just the fucking alley, but even looking at the door made her queasy.

"Vash?" she ventured a bit uneasily. "You think you can stack 'em tonight?" All of her nervous thoughts might just as well have been spoken aloud, because Vachon smiled understandingly. "Sure thing, Luna. I'll take care of it." From the banquette where she sat with Nick, Janette noticed. A frown shadowed her face, immediately picked up on by Nick who followed her gaze to where Maura was gathering glasses while Vachon brought the cases to the alley.

"What?"

"Nothing." She returned to the subject they'd just been discussing, something about music. She was carefully distracting Nick to keep him from crowding Maura. When things were finished and the money counted, Maura came back to the table.

"I'm ready when you are."

Janette put on a bright expression. "Cherie, I thank you for coming in tonight because as you know it would have been difficult to fill in on such short notice. But I would like to give you time off, shall we say until next Saturday."

Maura gestured in annoyance. "Janette, I don't _need_ a week off."

Janette shrugged mildly. "Perhaps not. But what is that charming American expression, don't look in a gift horse's mouth, n'est-ce pas?"

Nick saw Maura's stance change to stubborn mode, and braced himself.

"I _told_ you, I want to work."

Janette didn't rise to the challenge, to Nick's relief. A face-off between these two women, he did not want to experience. "And I told _you_ I will give you time off, with pay, until next Friday." Janette's expression became coolly resolute as Maura prepared to argue. "My accountant has advised me it is I who own this establishment. Has something changed without my knowledge?" The only reply was Maura's sullen stare. "Very well, then." Janette rose to see them to the door, stopping Maura with a hand on her arm before she could stride out into the night.

"Cherie, listen to me." Maura turned to look at her. "You cannot honor your friend by hurting yourself. D'accord?"

Maura nodded, barely, and walked to the car alone.

"Thank you, Janette," Nick whispered as he kissed her goodnight.

"It is something we have had many years to learn," she told him quietly. He could swear there was a sadness in her eyes as she watched Maura walk away.

The message light was flashing when they got home. Nick idly poked at the switch as he headed to the kitchen and Maura hung up their stuff.

"Uh, hi," a female voice said hesitantly, "I hope this is where Maura Logue lives. I'm Annie Martin, Christopher's sister. We, that is the family, we all wanted you to know that we're having a service for Chris. The police said they could send him home on Tuesday, so we're planning for Wednesday. I, we, want you to know that you would be so welcome to come remember him with us. Your boyfriend is welcome too, you could stay here at my mom and dad's house if you want. If you'd rather not come we'll understand, you don't know us, but really we think it would be good if you could. Please call anytime to let me know." She left a New Hampshire phone number, which Nick wrote down without comment. He laid the note with the number on his desk and said nothing more about it as they went upstairs to bed. Maura had been quiet on the ride home, nothing since coming inside, and betrayed no reaction to the phone message. No stranger to the occasional silences between them, Nick went about the business of getting ready to sleep and left her to do the same.

"I guess you're my boyfriend, then," Maura said apropos of nothing when they'd settled in bed. She was lying on her back, staring up into the candle shadows on the ceiling.

"I won't tell if you won't." he replied and slid over to lean above her on one elbow, brushing some imaginary hair out of her eyes and tracing a finger along her cheek. He didn't ask, but she answered.

"I dunno, Bats. It's a long way from here." In more ways than one, she added silently.

"You heard what she said. I'll come with you if you go. But whatever you decide is okay." She moved into his arms and sighed.

"Okay. Janette is right, I can't honor Christopher by freaking out. We can go Tuesday night. You sure you don't mind going to all the trouble?" He knew she meant the stock explanations regarding diet and daylight, having to transport enough bottles in the battery-powered cooler he ran off the caddy's cigarette lighter, all that "vampire crap". He reassured her with a kiss.

"Not even a little bit. You call the Martins tomorrow to fill in the details, and I'll tell the captain I'll be back by Friday."

Another sigh. "Okay."

"I love you, Sweet."

"I know. I love you too."

"Sleep, now."

She tried, but at best dozed off and on through the next morning, mostly settling for concentrating on the shelter of Nick's embrace.


	3. Chapter 3

They arrived in West Rye New Hampshire just after 10:30 on Tuesday night. The day was overcast enough that Nick was able to go out before sunset with some added protection of hat, shades, etc, and once in the caddy he was protected by the polarized windows. As it was they made good time. Nick displayed a "talent" for persuading state police to forgive his speeding.

"Isn't that against the 'rules'?" Maura asked him when they were pulled over for doing 96 mph on the highway.

"The Enforcers never got around to considering moving violations," Nick explained after the smoky finished wishing them a pleasant trip and returned to his cruiser.

For most of the drive Maura stared idly out the window at the passing scenery, struggling mightily to forget where they were going and why. Nick kept his arm draped along the back of her seat, stroking the back of her head much of the time. There wasn't really much to say.

"If you want to take a nap I'll pull over and you can lie down in back," he offered after a couple of hours of silence. The vintage caddy didn't feature reclining seats.

"I'm okay," she told him somewhat listlessly, so he took her nearest hand and kissed it. "Okay. Just say the word if you want to take a break."

"Okay." But she didn't much care, figuring the sooner they got there the sooner she'd be through it.

The directions Annie had given Maura were simple and precise. Christopher's parents, brother, and the younger of his sisters lived not far from the ocean, in a good-sized frame house with a well kept yard and trees all around. It seemed every light was burning when they arrived. They left their things in the car as they approached the front door with Maura taking the lead. The door opened when she'd barely touched the bell, answered by a dark haired. Christopher's mother, she figured.

"Maura. Please, come in, I'm Margaret Martin, Chris's mom." She took Maura's hand rather than shook it, leading her in the door as she looked beyond to where Nick stood with his hand on Maura's shoulder. "You must be Nick. Thank you for coming with her, it's a long way to come on your own."

"Mrs. Martin, I'm so sorry for your loss. Maura told me a great deal about Christopher but I'm afraid I never got the chance to meet him."

"Please, call me Margaret. Come and meet the rest of the family. Chris told us a great deal about Maura and you too, Nick."

They met Christopher's dad Doug, his brother James and sisters Annie (whom Maura had called to get the directions) and Elizabeth. James was 16 and in high school, Annie 18 and soon to graduate. Elizabeth, Doug's daughter from a previous marriage, was in her late 20's and lived in Maine, and had come when she'd gotten the news. All seemed less shattered than Maura had expected, but then they seemed to be doing a good job of supporting one another. It seemed odd to Maura that Margaret was so concerned about _her_ state of mind. They were all treating her very kindly, though it was apparent that James in particular was having a hard time and said little.

Margaret insisted on getting Maura something to eat after she had explained Nick's dietary and outdoor restrictions, and out of politeness Maura accepted some homemade corn chowder and bread and a cup of chamomile tea.

"Thank you, really, you don't have to go to all this trouble. You have your own concerns right now," Maura tried hard to deflect the attention as Nick stayed quietly by.

"It's no trouble. You were a good friend to Chris, and you belong here because of that."

"I'm sorry I won't be able to come to the service tomorrow," Nick told Margaret, troubled that Maura would be on her own.

"Don't worry, Nick, she'll be with us." A look of immeasurable pain clouded her face for a moment. "This is hard for all of us to deal with, even to imagine."

Maura announced tot the family, "I don't know if Christopher told you, but Nick's a police detective for Metro Toronto. He and his partner are working Christopher's case." Struck by how cold that sounded she added, "I'm sorry, that's a terrible way to say it."

"Not at all," Doug had come into the kitchen after making a series of phone calls. "It's good to know that the people trying to find the person that did this to our son have some sort of connection with him, even indirectly."

"Isn't it odd," Maura mused, "I feel like I've met you all. Not that I know you, but that Christopher introduced us."

"Not so odd." Now Annie and Elizabeth were sitting at the table with them as well. "Chris was always good at connecting the people he cared about even if they never really met."

James appeared in the doorway. "Nick, I can help you bring in your stuff and show you where you'll be staying."

Nick looked to Maura before he answered. "Really, you can leave me alone for five minutes," she assured him.

Nick led the way to the Caddy and opened the trunk to pull out the bags. "I can't imagine how hard this must be for you and your family," he told James.

"I guess you deal with this a lot." He must have heard Maura's comments about Schanke and the ongoing case.

"That doesn't make it easy. Especially when it's someone close."

"But you said you never met my brother."

"No, but I know how important he was to Maura, and that makes it important to me." He unplugged the cooler from the cigarette lighter. "Special stuff for me to drink, I can just plug it in wherever we're staying."

"Part of your allergy and food stuff, huh?"

"Yeah. It's a pain in the butt, but you do what you have to."

Halfway back to the house, James stopped cold and turned to face Nick, his expression harder than any kid's should be. "You're gonna get the asshole that did this, aren't you?"

"My partner and I are gonna do everything we can. We're good at our jobs."

"And it's important, because of Maura."

"It's _always _important," Nick corrected, then admitted, "but you're right. Maura makes it personal."

"Good." They went inside and James took him upstairs to a comfortable-looking bedroom. By reflex Nick checked out the two windows.

"They're blackout blinds," James told him. "No worries."

Nick smiled as he plugged the cooler into an outlet next to the bedside table. "Thanks. I know it's weird."

"Life's full of weird. Chris told me plenty of weird."

Nick jerked upright and looked hard at the kid. "No worries," James repeated. "Friends of my brother are friends of mine."

Still uneasy, Nick stopped James' exit from the room with a hand on his shoulder. "James," he began, uncertain how to continue. He _knew_, Nick could just tell he did.

James shrugged offhandedly. "I told you. No worries. Your girlfriend did right by my brother, and so will you. So I do right by you. Understand?"

"I hope so."

It was just after midnight, and when Nick returned to the kitchen he could see Maura was worn to the bone.

"Come on, Sweet," he moved behind her chair and squeezed her shoulders, "let's call it a day." She looked up at him, and he restrained himself from kissing her.

"Okay. The service is at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning."

"We've been calling it a 'service'," Elizabeth explained, "but it's really just a gathering at the community center. Chris wasn't involved in any religion, so we're just going to get together and share some memories, play some music he liked."

"It sounds nice. I wish I could be there," Nick told them all.

"Me too," Maura whispered as they headed upstairs. When Nick led her into the guest room he noticed for the first time the bed was just standard full sized, maybe half the size of the monster they slept in back home.

"It's gonna get cozy," Maura commented.

"I don't mind," Nick hugged her round the waist. "No sneaking away in the middle of the night." She still did that from time to time. After getting changed into t shirt and sweats (he'd thought silks might be a bit over the top) he crawled into bed nearest the wall, in case Maura had to get up during the night.

"You never have to pee," she'd told him early in their relationship, "I _hate_ that."

Maura was still fairly listless but growing more anxious inside. The Martin family made it very easy to see how Christopher (she couldn't bring herself to call him Chris as everyone else seemed to do) turned into the bright, interesting and open young man he had become. And the physical family resemblance was downright painful, James being a perfect image of his what his brother must have looked like at the same age. After washing up in the bathroom down the hall Maura returned to the guest room and hit the light switchr, momentarily blinding herself. She stood uncertainly just inside the closed door, the blinds blocking out any light from outside.

"Right here, Sweet, come to me," and she followed his voice until he could take her hand to draw her into the (comparatively) tiny bed with him. He was getting ready to snuggle up behind her as usual, but she didn't want to face away from him tonight. She managed to rotate so her head was settled on his shoulder, face against his neck and one arm around his waist. "Don't let me fall, okay?" She meant out of bed, but he chose to give it fuller meaning.

"Jamais, ma doucette," he tipped her face up so he could kiss her mouth and cheek and temple. She pressed into his shoulder again.

"I wanna go home," she murmured rather pointlessly.

He gripped her closer. "I know. I love you."

"I know. You too." She breathed in deeply to hold his fragrance, moonlight and silver.

Hours later on the way back from the bathroom she was drawn to the window at the end of the hall. It looked out over the yard, awash in moonlight. Christopher had told her how the moon lit up the garden here, how some nights during his visits home he and James would sit outside and talk nearly until the sun rose, about whatever came into their heads. Like him and her. The space left behind by that absence ached already. She was embraced from behind, a soft whisper at her ear.

"What's shaking, Sweet?"

"Nothing, I guess." He swayed her a little, side to side, slow, the way he sometimes did when she was pensive or upset but couldn't put it into words.

"Come on back, I'm lonesome."

Maura let Nick walk her back to bed, arms around her, and she fell into an uneven sleep again in his close embrace as he stroked her hair. She dreamt of moonlight, the garden, spending the night talking with Christopher. It was so real, so sweet and familiar, that waking jolted her when she realized where she was and why.

"Bad dream?" Nick had been awake most of the night, content to hold her as she slept, keeping watch over what he wasn't sure.

"Not bad, exactly. I was with Christopher, talking in the garden." She shut her eyes again. "It was so _real_, Nick." Her eyes snapped open again, wide, alarmed. "What happens when I can't remember anymore? I don't have any pictures, how will I remember his face?"

"You know I can help you hold onto that, if you want me to." She'd never wanted to take advantage of his special ability to affect her mind, but this time she felt she might say yes. "Maybe."

Nick dressed in silence, correctly guessing that Maura wanted to prepare herself on her own. Christopher was her friend and it was her loss, and no matter how badly Nick wanted to help there were some parts of this weight he simply couldn't share.

He wandered into the kitchen where Margaret was finishing her coffee. Politely declining the offered cup he sat down at the table with her, his thoughts with Maura upstairs. Doug was still getting ready, and James, Annie, and Elizabeth were already at the community center putting preparations in order.

"I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to know Chris. Even though you never met, he spoke very highly of you."

Nick deflected with an awkward smile. "It came from a prejudiced source."

Margaret put her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. "Chris could tell the kind of man you are, from knowing Maura. She told him that meeting you gave her a new life. Seeing how you care for her now, I can imagine that."

Nick gave in to the woman's directness. "I'm worried about her, Margaret. You, Chris's family, you have each other to lean on, to get through this terrible thing. Maura just has me, and I'm afraid I'm not doing very well... I deal with death on the job every day, coming up with words of comfort for grieving strangers, but it seems I'm useless to someone I'm close to."

Margaret sat back and smiled. "I'm sorry you believe that, because from what I've seen it's just not true. You're standing by her, you traveled hundreds of miles to be with her when she needs you, for a friend you never even met. Those are the kinds of things that renew a life, Nick, it doesn't take magic words or perfect insight. You love her don't you?" She didn't allow him to answer. "That's more than many people have. Believe it or not, it _can _be enough."

Nick turned away as Maura quietly entered the room. She was dressed in purple and green. "I know it looks a little strange, but they were our colors. For the game, I mean. Christopher was purple, I was green. Always."

Margaret rose with a kind smile. "You look lovely. I think Doug should be ready, and we don't want to keep our other friends waiting."

Our other friends, Maura thought to herself. It really was as if Christopher had brought them all together, like he'd frequently said he'd like to do. When Margaret had gone Nick went to where Maura was looking out the window, standing just beyond where the sun reached into the room.

"It's a pretty day," he said a little wistfully. "Maybe I can pull it off, you know, the shades and hat and all that."

She turned and laid both hands on his chest. "You'd burn yourself to a crisp for me, wouldn't you?"

He shrugged. "Call it a weakness."

"Just Nick," she began, but couldn't think of anything sufficient to express her feelings.

"I love you too," he told her, and kissed her forehead. "You go and say goodbye. I think it might be easier now." She nodded and took his hand as he walked her to the front door where Margaret and Doug were waiting.

Maura expected some kind of dramatic release at the gathering, something that would turn the lock inside of her again and trigger the sort of outburst she'd been fearing. To her surprise she felt no internal struggle at all. There were many people there, family friends and contemporaries of Christopher, some tearful but most smiling. His photo, taken somewhere in the sunshine (had she ever actually seen him in the _sunshine_, she tried to remember), smiling and windblown, was displayed on a simple table surrounded by cd's, an electric guitar, a skateboard (he'd given that up, he said, because Toronto had no prime real estate for it), and of course film posters, DVD's, and vhs cassettes. What made her smile the most, to her even greater surprise, was the Genus IV edition of Trivial Pursuit set up as if ready to be played. One of the countless music tapes he'd dubbed so artfully – he had such an ear for how to compile strange collections that worked beautifully – was playing from the community hall sound system. There was coffee and soda, incongruously, half a dozen or so bottles of Cristal champagne set up on a silver tray. Next to them was another silver tray arrayed with crystal champagne flutes, all of them etched with delicate lilies, obviously quite expensive. Maura wondered if there'd been a collection taken up for the event she was unaware of. As she stood looking at the arrangement, Annie approached.

"These were delivered today, from Toronto. This note came with them, I didn't want to open it before you did." The linen envelope was inscribed "Friends and family of Christopher Martin".

Immediately Maura recognized Janette's elegant hand. Maura withdrew the note and read it aloud to Annie : "To Maura, and the family and friends of Christopher Martin: Please accept these gifts to honour a rare friendship; those who transform our lives must not pass uncelebrated. Yours humbly Janette duCharme."

Annie choked up. "Beautiful," she murmured. "Did Janette know Chris?"

Maura shook her head. "Not really. She and Nick go way back; she owns the club where I work, where Christopher used to spend evenings visiting me out back during the slow hours. She only met him once, when he came looking for me on my night off. He made an impression, and Janette is rarely impressed."

"You must be very close," Annie observed. Again Maura nodded.

"She gave me the chance for a life I never dreamed of, a job, a place to live, and Nick."

"You mean she introduced the two of you?"

"Uh-huh." It meant much more than that, of course, but Maura could never explain.

The gathering was casual and warm, sharing recollections and more than a few funny stories. Maura found it easy to relate some of the sillier moments of her times with Christopher, usually related to their games. It was, as Janette's note suggested, far more celebratory than funereal. Even the tears were usually triggered by bursts of laughter. And everyone greeted her as if they knew her, and she felt as if they did. He'd introduced them, after all.

Maura was selected to present the champagne toast, and bottles were opened and glasses filled and passed around. "I don't think I can do better than my friend Janette," she began before briefly explaining who Janette duCharme was and how Christopher came to inspire this gift. She then read the note aloud to the company, and raised her glass: "To Christopher Edward Martin, who managed to transform us all." "To Chris!" everyone shouted with raised glasses and drank as one. The three bottles left untouched were marked for further celebrations, to be used only as a toast to him.

On the drive back to the house Doug was curious. "Not that I don't know how special my son was, but what could he have said to your friend to prompt over a thousand dollars' worth of champagne and crystal?"

"She never really told me," Maura lied, "but you have to know that Janette isn't given to empty displays, even though she can afford them."

When they arrived back at the Martin home they found Nick pacing nervously in the living room. He fairly sprang to the front door, almost forgetting to avoid the sunlight streaming in. Maura pushed him back abruptly. And subtly, she hoped, on account of Doug and Margaret.

"Don't be so jumpy, Nick."

"How was it," Nick asked, feeling supremely stupid for the question.

"It was lovely," Margaret assured him. "Your friend Janette sent some very expensive champagne and crystal glasses and a lovely note, so we could toast Chris and his influence on our lives."

Any suspicions Maura might have had regarding Nick's involvement were erased by his expression of surprise. "I'll show it to you later," she promised.

She did show him, upstairs in the bedroom as she gave him details of the memorial. "I thought I'd be upset, but I wasn't. Not really, anyway. It was, I don't know,_ friendly, _like Christopher had brought us all together to enjoy each other's company."

Nick eyed her. "That's all?" He was still worried about her obvious distance from such a traumatic loss. Only a random phrase here and there, her mood swings at home, had hinted at the turmoil that must be hiding within.

"Yeah, Just Nick, that's all." She gathered things to put in her traveling bag. They'd be leaving the next day after dark, and as always she hated leaving things to the last minute. Nick stopped her busy hands with his own.

"Maura, I'm a little concerned you haven't really taken this in yet. You seem a bit matter-of-fact about the whole thing, all things considered."

She stopped and stood and looked into his eyes. "Bats I really, honestly, don't feel any sort of inner battle to hold anything down. I swear. I don't know why. Maybe it's self preservation. I can't manufacture hysteria, even if it would make you feel better."

He frowned. "Don't be ridiculous. How could that make me feel better?"

Maura brushed the hair from his forehead, the way he often did when he was focusing on her. "I'm sorry, that was wrong. Look, Nicolas, it hurts, okay, it does, but I'm just not the meltdown type I guess. Maybe I've just forgotten how."

"I don't think you _have _anything to 'forget'. I don't think anything quite like this has ever happened to you."

She shrugged uneasily. "Yeah, well... I don't know what to tell you."

Nick stepped closer and reached his arms around her. "Whatever you need to."

She knew exactly what he meant, and knew he was right. But she didn't want to think about it, didn't want to dig too deep, not now. Maybe never. So instead of saying anything she laid her face against his shoulder and hugged close to him.

"You're all I need, Nick," she said finally, "I don't need talk, I don't need therapy, I don't need some inner journey to embrace my loss. I just need you, okay? Can you believe me?"

"You bet," he said in her ear, sealing it with a kiss. But that night he knew she wasn't sleeping as they lay tangled together in bed. Once again he said nothing, deciding to wait until her need made itself apparent to both of them.


	4. Chapter 4

The next evening farewells were made with hugs and kisses and promises to stay in touch. This time it was Maura that carried the bags, with James' assistance. When they'd finished piling the things in the trunk and Maura had connected the cooler inside the car, she noticed James looking steadily at her as if he had something to say.

"What is it?" she asked, "you look like you're on the verge of saying something. Spit it out."

"Chris loved you, you know."

She smiled. "I suppose I loved him too. Our friendship moved that fast, and we never questioned it."

He shook his head. "No, Maura, I mean he _loved_ you. Like Nick does. Well, not exactly like Nick, they weren't the same person were they?"

Maura was taken aback. "What are you saying? That Chris," in her surprise she used the informal name, "was _in_ love with me?"

"Or as close as he could get. He said nobody had ever connected with him like you did, or he did with you. He said if it weren't for Nick he'd have taken a shot."

Maura was shaking her head. "Oh my god, oh I never suspected." She looked at James in alarm. "Oh no, I never wanted that, you have to believe me. I'd never have hurt your brother for anything, not for my _life_."

James gripped her arm and shook it gently. "Calm down, will you? He wasn't hurt, he wasn't disappointed. He wasn't spending all his time wishing things were different. I'm only telling you because he would have, he was going to. Because he said to me he knew it wouldn't screw things up with you guys, he knew you were wise enough to take it as he meant it and not let it weird you out. He said that you were so happy with Nick, that made it fine with him." He couldn't suppress a sly smile of his own. "But he told me if you guys ever broke up, he'd make his move in a New York minute."

"He was really gonna tell me, he trusted me that much."

"Totally. Shouldn't he have?"

She squeezed his hand. "No question. Thanks, James, it must have taken a lot to tell me." The young man shrugged dismissively.

"Nah. He said if he didn't get the chance, that I should let you know."

At first it didn't register, but she stopped on the way to the front door. "What did he mean, 'if he didn't get the chance'? When did he say that?"

"Couple weeks ago. We were talking on the phone, getting all deep and shit like we did sometimes, and he told me that. He was in kind of a mood, you know how he got sometimes. Not grim or depressed, just... thoughtful. I think someone from work was in his face about something. If it was really important he would have told me."

"Yeah," she agreed vaguely.

She looked back to wave when she buckled into the front seat and they pulled away.

"Those are very special people," Nick observed as he gave her hand a squeeze. "I'm glad you decided to come."

"Me too." She looked over at him as he concentrated on the road. "I'm glad you came with me. I know it was tough just hanging around, but it really did help." He pressed her hand to his lips, offering no other reply.

It was at the state line that it hit her. The sign "Leaving New Hampshire". Leaving. For good. For always. Maura had no particular connection with the state, but felt something tear away inside as they sped past. She took a convulsive breath.

"You okay?" Nick asked. When she didn't answer he cut a look away from the road to see her clamp a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

"What's wrong? You want me to pull over?"

She nodded, unable to speak, and Nick cut into the breakdown lane and hit the flashers as he turned to her. He saw in an instant what he'd been waiting for and worrying about for days.

"He's gone, isn't he," she gasped, to Nick, to herself, to nobody, "the only person like me, the only one who got in, the only one who let _me_ in, and he's _never coming back is he?"_

Nick pulled her tight into his arms, "No, Sweet, he's not, I'm so sorry, he's not coming back." This seemed to turn the last lock in her, and she dissolved in a heartbreakingly quiet weeping, a confused look on her face, as if someone else were controlling it and Maura merely its vehicle.

Maura had never felt such pain in her life, as if her tears weren't relieving her trauma but increasing it, microscopic razor blades cutting their way out. She wouldn't have been surprised to find blood on Nick's shirt, on her hands and face, because it felt exactly like she was injured internally. And she was gripped in a terror she couldn't begin to understand, a certainty she'd never feel other than abandoned and alone even as Nick hugged her tighter and tighter. It wasn't the same, wasn't the same, over and over the words echoed in her head. He loved her, he held and helped and understood her, but he wasn't _like _her, not really, not like Christopher had been, he'd been the first to get in, the first and now the only one who would. Overcome with nausea, she broke free of Nick, unlocked her belt and pushed the car door open, half-falling out to vomit painfully on the asphalt. Nick shot out of the driver's side and flew over the Caddy's roof, for once not caring who saw. As it happened, the few speeding drivers who noticed at all registered some guy jumping over his car, maybe even climbing, because that's what their brains could process at seventy miles per hour. Nick lifted Maura's head, caught her as she slumped out of her seat.

"Maura, look at me," he climbed in the car seat beside her, trying to get her to focus on him. "I'm gonna find a place to stop." He locked her seat belt around her, and wiped her face and mouth with Kleenex he kept in the glove box. "Baby, it's gonna be okay," he whispered and hastily kissed her before running around the car and getting back behind the wheel. He kept one hand behind her head, buried in her hair, massaging her neck and the back of her head, as she doubled over as far as she could, hands clamped tight over her face as if to shut out some unspeakable horror. He looked for somewhere, anywhere to go where he could keep her safe until this storm passed. In a blessedly few minutes he saw a sign that indicated a Hilton hotel off the next exit, and moments later he was registering with an elegantly dressed concierge at the polished marble desk while Maura, whom he'd been afraid to leave in the car, sat nearby in a richly upholstered armchair, trembling and crying breathlessly. The clerk observed her over Nick's shoulder, his studied casualness making it obvious he was checking for trouble, perhaps for signs of abuse.

"Is your wife ill?" he asked.

"No, Peter," Nick told him, noting his brass nameplate. He decided the direct approach would be best. Why bother with a lie, anyway? "Her best friend was murdered last Friday. We're returning to Toronto from the funeral in New Hampshire. It's been very hard, long trip and all."

Immediately the concierge's manner changed. "I'm terribly sorry, let me know if there's anything we can do to make things easier,"

"Why don't we just get a room for now, okay?" Nick tossed a platinum card on the desk and tried to keep the impatience out of his voice as he kept one eye on the distraught Maura. "One with a sofa would be ideal. I don't care about the view, really."

Peter scanned his computer screen. "I have a suite on the top floor with a king bed and fully furnished living room area. Will that do?"

"Perfect thanks."

"Your luggage?"

Shit. He hadn't even thought of it.

"Detective Knight," the clerk had taken his badge number as i.d., "If you'll trust me with your keys, I'll have the valet park your car and bring up your luggage."

"Great, thanks. Oh, there's a cooler," he told him, uncertain how else to explain it, "it's inside, plugged into cigarette lighter. It contains medication I need, very fragile, bring that up as well please, and make sure to keep it level." It really wasn't necessary to do that, but Nick figured it would underline a sense of urgency and perhaps privacy to request special handling. The cooler was securely locked, in any case, and there was no indication which of his keys would open it.

"Very good sir," he handed Nick a pair of key cards. Nick dropped one on the desk. "I'll just take this. Thanks again," and he went to where Maura was now folded in "crash" position. He knelt by her and spoke close to her ear.

"Maura, Sweet, we're going upstairs. We'll stay here tonight, they're gonna bring our bags up to us. Come on," and she rose with him as he took her hands, then wrapped an arm around her waist. She hung onto his other hand with both of hers, not speaking, still trembling in silent tears as he led them to the elevator.

Maura experienced all of it from a strange distance even as she felt Nick lift her into his arms when the elevator doors slid closed. "Hold on, Sweet, it's all right, I'm here." She did hold on around his neck, head on his shoulder, body clenched tight and shuddering as if she were cold, but she wasn't cold, she felt... lost. Somehow they were in a room, one she didn't recognize, not at Margaret and Doug's anymore, and she was lying in Nick's lap on an unfamiliar sofa, he was talking softly to her, in French, "tout sont bien, ma doucette, je t'aime, tout sont bien," she burrowed into him, curled around him, wanting to be surrounded, absorbed, hidden.

"I'm scared," she whined, "I'm so scared," and she didn't know exactly why. Nick held her even closer then, whispering now in English, "I love you, Maura, I love you, I'm here, don't be afraid, I'm right here with you, I won't leave you, not ever," she sounded childlike to him, her tears helpless rather than hysterical. "Just let it go, love," and she whispered "I don't know how, I want to but I don't know how," so he rocked her slowly and kissed her, and when the steward came in with their things and plugged in the cooler he saw a man comforting his grieving wife, not a vampire trying desperately to soothe his mortal lover who had lost her only mortal friend.

"Make it stop, please just make it stop," in her head she knew she was talking crazy, like she had that first night in the interrogation room when she'd begged Nick to let her deny her i.d. of Christopher's body. But she also knew he could take it from her, this terror that was swallowing her, he could take it away and leave her whole and safe.

"I wish I could," he turned her face up to his and kissed her eyes and cheeks and forehead, wanting to wash away the pain that was pouring out of her. Janette was right, Natalie and everyone who knew him so well were all right, he wanted to reach inside and pull this hurt out of her in one piece, throw it away and destroy it so it couldn't reach her. He couldn't, and it was driving him crazy. A thought occurred to him then as her panicked eyes locked on his again, because he knew he _could_ make it stop, could reach in and take every painful thing from her mind and heart, he could do it right now as he held her because she _wanted _him to, she didn't need to say the words, the wanting was enough. She was asking him, she was begging him, make it stop, make it go away, as Natalie had begged him to bring her across that time when they all feared the world would end. It was so easy, she needed it so badly, he was so frantic to comfort her. He pressed a hand to the side of her face, his forehead against hers. Suddenly she gripped his wrist, fingers warm and terribly strong, she wanted this, as she'd wanted him when he'd first taken her, when she'd first taken him. There was no question in his mind it was what she was asking, pleading. And even as she begged him with her eyes, with her vise grip on his wrist, there was no question in his mind that it was wrong.

This was mortal grief, a loss that she needed to experience as part of her life, hard and sharp and brutal as it was, not watered down by eight hundred years of rehearsal and cheapening by self-induced repetition. To take it from her was to take the deepest part of her bond with Christopher, the link between them that made her pain necessary and unavoidable. In that instant he realized for the first time he was jealous of that link, it burned in him like a secret rage. The connection she'd shared with this mortal, this _boy_, he'd never share with her. Love, blood, sex, all of their bonds reached across a gap that would never be narrowed. That last complete understanding of her, that even her blood wouldn't give him, who she was and how she lived, and she'd found that from someone she'd known for barely three months. The length of their separation when he'd gone off with LaCroix to secure their future. The length of time it had taken her to create a new life for herself, replace her learned weaknesses with new strength. She hadn't gone to pieces when she thought he'd gone for good, and though it shamed him to realize it the knowledge angered him. She'd pulled herself together and walked away. It flared within him unexpectedly, a desire to wipe this new connection from her memory. Why leave a thing she could only compare to him and be disappointed? He gripped her a little tighter, fingers bringing her face closer to his. She was making it so easy, he could leave the memory of a good friend and remove what he could never be equal to.

_No_. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Christopher didn't leave her, he was _taken _from her, and this torment of hers that would calm in time to become a loving memory wasn't his to take away. His brow furrowed, face drawn in a frown as they stared into one another's eyes. He hadn't expected to be caught in his own struggle. His grip on her face turned gentle and he ran his fingers along the tearstained skin. "No, love, I can't make it stop, I won't take him from you again by taking this pain away, it's yours to keep, it won't always feel like this, trust me, I know it won't," and he remembered that Janette had said she'd get through this because she must. Natalie was right, too, that mortals had far fewer chances to find another such bond, that her pain must be so much more intense because of the circumstances of her life, still more words echoed in his head. How about instead of being sorry you think about it _before_ you fuck up, Nick? How many times had Maura said that to him in jest, in frustration, in tears? She was gazing up at him as if listening to a bedtime story, more settled now, breathing more evenly. He knew she was paying attention, waiting, and told her, "I'll help you with the pain, but 's wrong to take it away. It's part of your life, you have to live it the way you find it. Remember telling me that? 'Life doesn't ask your permission', you said. More than once. You need to hold onto that, hold onto me, and know it couldn't hurt so bad to lose your friend if he hadn't given you so much." There they were, the words he'd been searching for, he said them without even thinking very hard. Maura pulled him down to her for a deeper kiss, pressed her cheek against his and reached around his neck.

"Nothing can hurt me too bad if you're here," she told him. "I'm just a little lost, I think." She felt as if she were returning to familiar territory again, very slowly, though the sharp edges inside hadn't diminished. As long as Nick was with her she felt she had some sort of anchor to reality. He might find that amusing if she told him, but she didn't. She lay in his arms, catching her breath, feeling her terrors drain away a little more with each stroke of his fingers through her hair.

"Don't worry, I won't let you wander too far. I couldn't survive without you."

"You've survived 800 years without me," she corrected a little vaguely, prompting the gently affectionate smile she knew so well.

"Contradicting me. You must be feeling a little better." He tapped the tip of her nose with a finger, then followed it with a kiss on the same spot. "I do love you, Maura Logue. "

"How could you think this isn't as good, doesn't fill my life as well, as what I had with Christopher? Different, Just Nick, is not the same as better." His eyes narrowed.

"You're reading my mind again. Are you _sure_ you're not one of us?"

"If I were, I'd find the asshole that killed Christopher and kill him a swallow at a time, so he'd feel every drop drain out as he died." She delivered this bit of information with such icy calm it shook Nick.

"Whoa." He peered closely at her. "Come on, now."

Her expression didn't change. "Don't wait for me to take it back. I meant every word."

He considered commenting, something about her grief talking, but thought better of it. Let it go, he thought, let her vent. There's a lot more than pain inside of her right now. So he gathered her a little closer instead and kissed her, and she yawned.

"I'll try not to take that personally."

"I haven't slept right since… well you know since when."

"Yeah, I know. You want me to help?" If she let him he could send her into a deep, long sleep that only he could break. She looked as if she were arguing with herself for a moment. "Your call," he added. She nodded then.

"Yeah, please. I feel all fuzzy and gross, inside my head."

"Come on then," they got up and Maura lay on the big bed with Nick stretched out beside her, one hand on her stomach, his face resting near hers on the pillow, talking quietly.

"Let's leave the gross and fuzzy behind, just relax now and listen to me." He knew it didn't much matter what he said to her, that his voice alone and his hand on her would send her to sleep. "We'll be home soon, Sweet, back in front of the fire, with soft music and candles, I'll play some Mendelssohn, maybe you can hear it in your head right now…or Debussy, la Mer…" he continued conjuring familiar images and feelings and in just a few minutes she was deeply asleep. "Sweet dreams for once," he whispered to her, kissing her temple, "only sweet dreams." Then he took a bottle from the cooler, tipped a drop of elixir, and settled on the sofa to read.

"We got the bastard." Schanke's voice on the answering machine stopped Maura in her tracks as she carried some of their stuff to the stairs. They'd taken their time getting home, Nick having paid extra to keep the room until after dark, and it was after 11pm when they got back to the loft. Nick hadn't wakened Maura until late morning, and she was in much better shape than she'd been for days, focused and alert if still not terribly talkative.

"Call him," she told Nick. "Call him now, find out who it was. Find out what happened."

"Sweet, come on, we just got back…" he'd hoped to continue her calm mood for at least another night, enough to get her a little more settled before continuing with the case.

"Don't 'sweet' me, Bats, we both want to know, don't we?"

So Nick called Schanke at the precinct and got filled in.


	5. Chapter 5

"Kevin Mitchell, sometime employee at Hollywood North, friend of Martin's apparently, recently fired for skimming the till. Real low-budget stuff, like at other jobs he'd had. Not a hardcore druggie, but he liked to party and didn't much like to work. Seems he'd been trying to get Martin to help him rip off the store to get even with the boss, when that didn't work he wanted to bootleg videos and DVD's to sell. Martin wasn't interested, and last Friday Mitchell tried to hit Martin up for some company money. Owed his rent or something. Maura's right, Martin didn't usually work on Fridays and Mitchell figured whoever filled in would be easy to intimidate. Anyway according to Mitchell, who I swear Nick makes most of our perps look like Mensa members, he showed up on Friday when Martin was locking up. When Martin told him to get lost Mitchell pulled out a knife to try to 'impress' him, and they mixed it up. He says he didn't mean to stab Martin, claims he was dead when he left him. But Natalie says it took Martin at least an hour to bleed out, that he probably was knocked out when his head hit the sidewalk and shock and blood loss took over from there." He followed with details of the collar, blood from Mitchell's clothing that matched Christopher's DNA, etc.

"So what you're telling me is what should have been a fistfight wound up a murder because our man wanted to 'impress' his friend?"

"Or maybe it's what he'd like us to believe. Thing is, Martin was supposed to have just locked up but no keys were found on the body or anywhere in the area; you saw how we went over the place with a fine-tooth comb the night of the murder, so after we heard Mitchell's story we went back again. Like magic, shazam, the keys had turned up, wiped clean, conveniently lying in the gutter by the front door of the store. The gutter we'd already searched twice, and come up empty. Owner found the keys on Wednesday, between the time we first questioned Mitchell and when we arrested him next day."

Wheels turned in Nick's head. "So what put you onto Mitchell in the first place?"

"Store owner, told us he'd been in Martin's face. Darren Brown's his name, he's pretty broken up over this. Really fond of Martin, saying over and over he should've had it out with Mitchell himself, called the cops, anything."

"Could he have been in this with Mitchell, insurance or something?"

"I don't think so partner, you didn't talk to him. It's like he's lost his son or something."

"Okay. But if Mitchell is making it sound like a stupid accident, what about the keys?"

Schanke snorted on the other end of the phone. "Like I said, this guy ain't exactly the Einstein of crime. I figure, and I'm not the only one, he took the keys off Martin after the fight and thought he'd wait a few days to maybe go back and clean the place out, maybe Martin's apartment too . Figured he was dead anyway, why not come out ahead? You know how this type is. Guess he didn't figure on Brown telling us about him harassing Martin. Maybe he didn't know Martin had told the boss."

"So why _didn't_ Brown get involved sooner? It was his store Mitchell wanted to rob, after all."

"Martin told him he'd handle it, Mitchell was his 'fucked up loser friend' and he'd straighten him out." Nick could fairly hear his partner shaking his head sadly. "Woulda, shoulda, coulda. So how's Maura holding up?"

"The funeral was more of a social gathering of Christopher's friends and family. Nice people, they took Maura in like one of their own. And me too. She was wound pretty tight until the trip back, but I think she managed to drain some of the poison out last night. We'll see."

"We're gonna have to talk to her, officially and all, to see if she knew this guy Mitchell."

"I know. I'll talk to her, we can arrange for her to be interviewed at the precinct. I'll be back at work tomorrow, anyway."

"Okay, man. Look, about Maura," Schanke sounded awkward.

"What is it Schank?"

"Give her a hug for Myra and me, okay? Just, well, you know,…"

"Yeah, I know. Thanks for both of us. See you tomorrow."

When he joined Maura in the bedroom she'd finished unpacking. It had taken a huge effort for her not to eavesdrop on his phone conversation. "Thanks for the privacy. I know it wasn't easy."

Now she stood still, waiting. "Tell me."

So he did, as much as was certain. Her expression registered disbelief, then disgust.

"Kevin? _Kevin_ killed Christopher? That fucking _loser_?" She went on to describe how he'd hung around a few times while she was visiting at the store, always with some filthy stupid comment or other. "Too stupid to even _pretend_ to play, you know? Yeah, Christopher told me how Kevin was after him like they'd pull off the crime of the century to 'show Brown who's the real boss'. Shit, Kevin was busted cold, he practically emptied the till one night and Brown called him on it. He'd known for awhile some was missing here and there but let it slide." She sat down heavily on the bed. "Fucking bloody mother of hell. _Kevin_. Y'know he probably told the truth, he was fucking around and flashing his blade and trying to be a _man_, you know, and something went wrong. And it's definitely not beyond him to take advantage even with Christopher lying there, to 'find the upside' like he always said. 'Everything has an upside'. Fucking _cannibal_, killing his own friend and then using him to try and steal!"

"Well according to Schanke Mitchell is so stupid this should be a slam dunk. He'll be going away."

"But not for life. It wasn't premeditated."

"So he says."

"You'll believe him when you meet him. He couldn't premeditate a trip to the bathroom after a case of beer." Maura seemed to be staring intently at a fixed point in middle space. Nick went to her and stroked a hand through her hair.

"Well we have him, anyway. You should call his family tomorrow and tell them."

"Yeah. Hey guys, good news, the guy that Chris brought home for Thanksgiving last year cut him up and left him to bleed to death. They'll be so relieved it was someone he _trusted_, someone they'd welcomed into their _home_," the bitterness was spewing out of her and Nick stepped back as she sprang to her feet.

"Where are you going?" he asked, "it's late."

She stopped short and looked hard at him for a moment. Then her expression gentled, she touched his cheek with a sad smile. "Need some air, Bats. Don't worry. Maybe I'll go to the club and decompress with some music."

"I'll drive you."

"Uh-uh. You've done enough. Plan your stuff for tomorrow, I know how you work. You'll want all sorts of shit in precise order on paper before you go in. I'll get a cab, Vash or Miklos can bring me home. Okay?"

Something felt uneasy, but then nothing had been "easy" for the past week. "Okay. You call if you change your mind, right?"

She kissed him, wrapped him up in a close hug. "Right. Love you."

"You too."

She was halfway down the stairs when he called to her. "Maura?" He stood by the gallery railing to look down at her.

"Yeah?" She looked interrupted in a serious venture.

He puzzled a moment, staring. "Nothing. Keep a clear mind."

She shook her head with a "huh?" expression. "Always." The cab arrived in minutes.

"CERK studios," she told the driver.

It was only the second time she'd gone there to see him. The first time was when she and Nick had mended their separation, and she and LaCroix had agreed to their standoff. As before, he wasn't surprised to see her.

"I got your message," she told him as she sat in the interview chair. He was through for the night, the automated broadcast switched on.

"And you have discovered who dispatched your friend."

"A pretty word for a stupid, useless death."

LaCroix relaxed back in his seat, not quite in the mood for his usual fencing match. "Most mortals can't conceive of a 'useful' death."

"We both know I'm not 'most mortals', LaCroix." She wasn't in a game playing mood, either.

"So... what brings you here?"

"I've been thinking about your offer."

"I don't recall making an 'offer'." But he understood the reference.

"Your suggestion, then." She took a breath, gathering her thoughts. And her rage, pain, and hatred. "Oh yeah, it's still in my mind. I don't know that it ever left, really. All the time on the way to New Hampshire, at the gathering, the way back… you could say it's been my constant companion. I can't say I knew what you meant, until Nick talked to Schanke when we got back tonight, and then told me about it. You were right of course, it was someone he trusted. And right also that 'never' is a long time."

"So you've come to ask what you would 'never' ask."

"Right again. A favor only you can grant, and you only _think_ you know what it is." LaCroix's inquisitive expression invited her to continue. "You know I want him dead. You think I want you to do it, a perfect crime that nobody would dare investigate, that could never make trouble for Nick's job. You could even make the asshole disappear, so far gone nobody would find him even if they looked far and long. And really, who would miss him enough to do that?"

"If I'm wrong in my assumption, what did you have in mind? I confess I'm intrigued."

"Bring him across." The words were as firm as they were casual. LaCroix's stunned expression was one Maura was sure he hadn't worn in decades, perhaps centuries. "Well at least I've lived long enough to see that. I truly believed you'd lost your capacity for surprise, LaCroix."

"So did I," he admitted, casting aside his usual grand demeanor. He paused, considering the possibility. "I can't say I'd find such an… inferior creature to be a welcome addition to the Community, though it's true if abandoned upon creation his torment would be immediate. And, of course, eternal."

Maura shook her head. "Not quite what I had in mind. The Community doesn't need another carouche, anyway. I was thinking more in terms of… lex talionis?"

"An eye for an eye, but in what sense? Now I _am _intrigued. How do you propose to evenly balance your friend's murder with his murderer's death?" He didn't fail to notice the coldness in her eyes as she leaned forward.

"By his suffering. I want you to bring him across, and shut him out. More to the point, _I _want to shut him out." He still appeared puzzled. "Jesus, do I have to draw you a map? You bring him across, it will be a cinch to appeal to his idiot ego with promises of eternal life, power, money. And women. _Especially_ women. If it weren't for his undoubtedly microscopic dick he wouldn't have a brain at all."

Unable to suppress a smile, LaCroix observed, "You do enjoy a colorful turn of phrase" He pasted on a serious expression and waited for her to continue..

"Gee thanks. So he gets one night, just one, under your dark tutelage, endless promises of his eternal life to come, then just before sunrise we meet somewhere where I can look him in the eye as I trap him out in the sunlight and watch him roast."

LaCroix experienced a very genuine shudder. "My dear, much as I hate to admit it, your formula for vengeance exceeds my wildest imagination. Perhaps the Enforcers are wrong about you…"

Maura sat up straighter and smirked. "Come on, you know that's bullshit. I harbor no ill intent toward the Community, not even _you_, LaCroix, after all of your creative torments. Let's just say I've been extraordinarily inspired to break from character."

LaCroix's gaze narrowed. "You can't possibly believe you can keep this from Nicholas. The smallest drop of your blood will tell him everything. Would you really endanger all you hold so _dear_ to do away with some inconsequential creature? Someone who would undoubtedly spend the rest of his life in prison, even when left to the devices of this feeble mortal 'law'?"

"Not good enough." Maura could feel her face harden with her voice. "He's not 'inconsequential' to me. Think, LaCroix, what punishments could you devise for anyone who destroyed Janette? Or Nick?" Suddenly LaCroix seemed to go dark all over, shut up in his own visions. Maura continued, "So. Understand now? Don't bother to answer. And given my string of rather profound 'disappointments' at Nick's hands, this one thing might just break us even don't you think? I can keep my blood from Nick until we get the job done, in any case. 'Not tonight dear' doesn't only work on mortals."

LaCroix seemed to be warming to Maura's proposal. "How do you propose I seduce our target across when he is in police custody?" he wanted to know.

"They gotta bring him to court, don't they? Help him 'escape', do your little hypno thing on the guards, convince them he overwhelmed them or whatever. Then you can tell him, I dunno, you were impressed to read about him, he'd be such an asset to the realm of the undead, blah, blah."

LaCroix looked as if he smelled something bad. "_Really_, Maura."

"Well shit, you'll think of _something_. You've had over 2000 years of nefarious pursuits to draw on! One thing is essential though… you can't let him kill."

Raised eyebrows. "And precisely how am I to seduce him without allowing him to experience a kill? He must feed soon after I bring him across or he'll simply die. Oh, no, I refuse to feed Nicholas's bovine vintage even to this one!"

She was shaking her head, the picture of disappointment. "LaCroix, LaCroix, you're really beginning to look more like an ancient amateur every time you open your mouth."

This annoyed him. "Well then, whose blood _shall_ I feed to him?"

"Mine." Not surprised this time, rather LaCroix betrayed an expression of undisguised admiration.

"And the new moon is in two days…"

"Dawn breaks, you should pardon the expression. Yeah, I'll get Natalie Lambert to bottle up a pint of mine, tell her it's for reserve for Nick for special occasions or something else suitably kinky that she'll believe right away. Even if she tells Nick, I'll be covered, but my guess is she wouldn't mention something so _intimate_. You just feed _my_ 'vintage' to Kevin, and he'll be a goner. Stupid, and stoned, and ready for me by sunrise."

LaCroix was shaking his head slowly. "Poor Nicholas. He truly has no idea who it is that shares his existence, does he?"

"Oh, I think he does. He just won't admit it to himself. Look, you folks did all your dirty deeds for sport. I don't pretend to be noble, but I believe this will serve a larger purpose. Because if Kevin would do this to Christopher, he'd do it to anyone else too. Not to talk you out of it, but I see it as doing my part to clean up humanity."

LaCroix hesitated a moment, then spoke against his better judgment and darker nature. "This all sounds perfectly engaging and logical. It would of course exact a fitting revenge upon the one who killed your friend. But how will you consider it later, when your passion for revenge has cooled? Will you weep for Nicholas's forgiveness, as he has wept for yours, having broken a sacred trust between you?" Maura could hear the satiric edge returning to LaCroix's voice but she wasn't playing. The levelness in her own voice surprised even her.

"I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."

And LaCroix never doubted for a moment that she would.

It was nearly 3:30am by the time Maura got home. She expected to find Nick waiting up, but he'd left a candle burning for her at the foot of the stairs in the darkened loft. She got changed quietly and slipped into bed; Nick was still awake and she jumped a mile when he asked, "Everything okay, Sweet?" then apologized profusely for startling her.

"Yeah, everything's fine." She snuggled into his arms, head on his shoulder, feet tangled with his. "I skipped the club, had the cab drop me at the beach and told him to come back and get me. I was gonna walk, but just sat there on a bench listening to the waves." It should have disturbed her how easily the lies came (she'd abandoned the original lie as too easy to disprove) but some inner switch seemed to have been turned off. A lie was a lie; if she was going to sink that low it might as well be one that stood a snowball's chance of surviving a few days. She felt his kiss against her forehead.

"How you doing, huh? It couldn't have been easy hearing what happened, what's going on in your head?"

"I don't wanna get into it just yet. I'm still sorting it out." Liar. She had it sorted out just fine, down to the last moment of Kevin Mitchell's miserable excuse for a life.

"Okay. Will you come with me to work tomorrow? We have to take a statement about Mitchell, find out what you knew about it."

"Okay. When do you think he'll be arraigned?"

"Once we get your statement… day after tomorrow I guess. Why?"

"No reason. Sooner this gets over the better." Finally she was telling the truth.


	6. Chapter 6

Maura gave a simple account to Schanke and Nick next day at the precinct. She told them about the times Kevin had come to the store when she was there.

"Did he ever talk about robbing the store?" Schanke asked her.

"No, he just talked about getting even with Darren but he never said what that meant when I was around."

"But the victim mentioned how Kevin Mitchell tried to convince him to help him plan a robbery, and/or bootleg DVD's and videos?"

Maura stiffened. "He had a _name_. His name was Christopher, not 'the victim'. " It wasn't the first time she'd told him that, both of them, and it was beginning to piss her off. Nick gave Schanke a meaningful look and switched off the recorder.

"I know it's hard for you, but I told you we have to do this a certain way," Nick explained gently. They'd been at it for over an hour, asking any and all relevant questions that could come up later or in court and that might help make the case even firmer. Maura's nerves were showing.

"I'm sorry," she sighed heavily. "I just, well shit it's hard to be so clinical, you know?"

"Yeah, I think I do," Schanke assured her. "Just a few more questions, okay, then we're through. You up for it?"

Nick had to admit, his partner could be very attuned when he wanted to. Maura nodded tightly as Schanke switched the recorder back on.

"Can you think of anyone else who may have wanted to hurt the vic… Christopher Martin? Anyone from the store, or from Raven where he came to visit you?"

Instinctively she began to answer with some hostility, but Nick caught her eye and his quiet gaze calmed her. "No. Absolutely no one. He didn't mix a lot socially, just had a few friends he spent time with. Me, and Darren."

"And Kevin Mitchell?"

"Yeah. I guess he considered Kevin a friend too." She wiped a weary hand across her face. "Bad move, huh?" Schanke hit the button on the recorder. "I think we've got what we need, huh partner?" Nick nodded.

"Thanks for doing this, Sweet."

"Detective, I think you'd better address me more formally while we're here."

"I won't tell," Schanke promised Nick, "you call her anything you want as long as it's polite." Maura knew that Captain Cohen had suggested that some "disinterested party" might be more appropriate to take Maura's statement, but both detectives had objected.

"C'mon, Captain, she trusts us. Why have her talk to a stranger?" Schanke had protested.

"Because she's not living with him, for starters."

"Look, Captain, I'll let Schanke handle the questions " Nick had assured her, "I'll just be there as a witness, okay?"

In the end she'd agreed. Now all that remained was for the notes to be transcribed and included in the case file, to be used by the Crown Prosecutor after the arraignment.

"Can you take a break to drive me to work?" Maura asked Nick, who immediately looked disapproving. She cut off his protests with, "I'm fine, Nick. I can't hide out forever, in fact it's better for me to be doing something other than moping around the apartment, okay? You caught the asshole, now it's just by the numbers. I've gotta get back to normal sometime."

Schanke busied himself gathering up the notebook and recorder. "I'm outta here, see you in half an hour."

"See? Your partner has no problem with it."

"My _partner_ doesn't live with you." He studied her for a minute. "Okay. I guess you're right, I'm being a little too protective."

"A _little_? If you wanna be daddy, go adopt someone."

"I said you're right, all right?" He hugged an arm around her and kissed her cheek.

"Okay… daddy." She smiled mischievously and he made a face.

"That's too sick to be funny. Let's go."

"You're a vampire and _I'm _sick, that's rich," she muttered in the elevator.

He pulled up at the side door of the club. "I won't come in. I wouldn't want to be accused of smothering you."

"Ha, ha. And thank you." She opened the door, but was stopped by his, "Hey, hey?" and wounded expression when she turned to face him.

"Christ, Knight, you are so _needy_ sometimes!" she laughed and leaned backwards to kiss him. "I'll catch a ride home. Have fun at work."

He rolled his eyes. "Always a party. Later, Sweet."

She watched him drive away, sincerely wishing she could feel guilty about deceiving him. Then she took off for the nearest phone booth to call LaCroix.

"Tomorrow they're transferring him for arraignment. I know they always truck the night court arraignments over to the courthouse at 10pm."

"And how do you know that Mr. Mitchell will be going to night court?" LaCroix replied drily. Maura matched him inflection for inflection.

"Duh, because the arresting officers have to be there. Which means Schanke and whomever, which means night court. Be by the transfer elevator at 10pm and do your thing on the cops. And before you ask, he's the only one going tomorrow. So it's him and a couple of uniforms, no more. Schanke's gonna meet them at the courthouse. If you're worried Mitchell will give you trouble, just do the spell on him too."

"I don't anticipate 'trouble'." His voice was frozen.

"Yeah but I couldn't resist. Have you decided where to take him?"

LaCroix gave her the name of one of the countless abandoned warehouses near the harbor, a storage facility that had been in disuse long enough not to have security guards but recently enough to have some securable rooms. He'd selected one of the ones that opened onto the dock, and had it fixed up in sumptuous style.

"Form the inside, he will think he's in Paris. I think I _will_ put him under, just for amusement. I'll be able to make him believe he's anywhere at all."

"You have whatever fun you want to, LaCroix. But bring him across, and don't let him kill. I'll come by after 3am to get _my_ party started."

"You haven't forgotten the blood?"

She hadn't. In the end she'd gone to Natalie to ask for assistance in finding a "cure" for her own curious condition.

"Just take a couple pints, Nat, and work at your leisure." Maura knew that she and Nick had given up on searching for a cure for vampirism Natalie had longed for a special "project" she could undertake to replace it. She'd readily agreed, and stored the specially marked sample bags in a locked cooler in the morgue.

"There are two pints, clearly marked as mine, stored in the morgue. You should have no trouble getting past the clerk. And they won't be missed for ages, Natalie's been very busy so she said she wouldn't have a chance to do anything with them for weeks."

"What exactly did you request the good doctor to do with them?" LaCroix inquired idly.

"Look for a 'cure' for me, of course. The one thing that definitely would _guarantee_ her cooperation." She could hear LaCroix's quiet chuckle at the other end of the line.

"Oh, what a pity," he began.

"Yeah, yeah, you can't bring me across. Well that's a trip I'd rather not make anyway, so it's just as well. I'll see you at the warehouse after 3am Tuesday morning."

As she went to work for real, Maura felt a curious lightening inside. The alley didn't scare her anymore, and she even spent a little time relaxing there after stacking the empties before closing. She was getting ready for the proper goodbye, the one she still hadn't been able to give Christopher. She knew for certain the hole in her heart would be healed when Kevin Mitchell was dead in a very special way.

When she let herself in the loft, Nick was reading on the sofa. He'd lit the fire, and some candles. Uh-oh, she thought, he must be in a romantic mood tonight. She didn't dare get that close to him until the Kevin issue was settled.

"How was your night?" he asked her with a smile.

"Same old. Good to be back, though. I always feel a little at loose ends when I stay away from there too long. It's like I found a place at last where I really belong, I really fit in, in all my cosmic weirdness, and it's my element. Does that make sense?"

"Perfect." Nick put his book down and extended an arm along the back of the couch. "C'mere, take a load off."

She really meant to say no thanks, she just wanted to sleep, but god she could never resist when he was so warm and welcoming after a long night's work. She settled next to him and dropped her head on his shoulder.

"You feel like you're calming down inside," he told her. Nick had sensed a settling in her in the past day or two; he'd attributed it to the arrest and the knowledge that Mitchell would be put away for a very long time. There was something underneath it, though, something so subtle he couldn't even identify it but it was becoming more and more noticable.

"Yeah I guess I'm making my peace with things," she said vaguely. Then Nick pulled Maura closer and kissed her in the way she usually couldn't resist. This time, though, she pulled away after a moment or two.

"I'm sorry Bats, I just don't…" she wasn't sure how to continue. The lies had been pretty easy so far, but their weight was beginning to accumulate. She hoped he'd write off her distance to adjustment anxiety.

"Don't be sorry," he let her go, but rubbed a thumb against her cheek. "It's just that ol' devil new moon getting to me. Come on, Sweet, I know you're still getting back on your feet. Let's get some sleep."

For the first time since she'd conceived her plan Maura felt a flicker of shame. He really would do anything at all to help her through this, or anything else that troubled her. Even if she told him what she had in mind, framed it as an idle fantasy, he'd never believe it. LaCroix was right, Nick really had no idea who he was sharing his life with. He didn't know everything she was capable of. Even if he knew her well, he hadn't known her long enough to see what could drive her to her own dark side. He probably didn't even suspect it existed. She sighed as they went up to bed, wishing he couldn't hear, knowing he did. He said nothing after they'd gotten changed, only looked closely at her. She was certain he knew, something anyway, something was different in her that had nothing to do with peace. But he didn't ask, he wouldn't press her when he still felt she was so fragile. He came to her where she stood by her dresser and took the brush from her, stroking it through her hair, managing somehow to make a loving gesture from something that in other hands would seem to Maura to be nothing but patronizing. It was almost too much for her, and she turned suddenly to face him. Still he said nothing, though his eyes were questioning.

"I love you, Nick, from the bottom of my worn-out soul I swear I do." She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life, knowing that not long from now she could be cast from Nick's life forever. She knew it but wouldn't change course, not even for him. This was between her and Kevin Mitchell. The only regret she felt was for what she might be destroying along with him. As for the rest, she'd never felt more secure in a decision in her life.

Nick was convinced by now that Maura was hiding something important from him, something she was afraid to share. He'd never been one to insist on being privy to her every thought, but this time he sensed a palpable urgency. He'd hoped to be able to read it in her blood, and wasn't proud of his rather transparent attempt at seduction. His concerns for her had been driven underground as her state of mind was shielded from him. There was a delicate and unpleasant dance going on here, he knew, and its steps were as disturbing as they were unfamiliar.

"Maura." He spoke her name as if to get her attention and was unsurprised by her puzzled expression as he approached her where she stood turning back her side of the bed. He took her hand from the bedclothes, held it in both his own. "Sweet." He kissed her hand, back and palm. "You need to tell me."

He knew. Fuck him, he knew, and never tasted a drop of her to inform him. Somehow it didn't occur to her that living together, loving each other, and having come to know one another so deeply could provide its own insight quite apart from any otherworldly powers.

"Tell you what?" Lame, she knew it sounded so lame. This was going to be harder than she'd expected. He stood inches away, gazing steadily into her eyes.

"I won't know unless you do. If you won't, how can I help?"

Something pulled at her inside. She'd never lied to him before now, ever, had kept some things inside until he coaxed them out but never hid them away to aid some secret agenda. "There's nothing to tell." He blinked once, twice, with a spare shake of his head. Did he look hurt?

"First time for everything." Then he traced her cheek, held his palm against her face, and for a heartbeat her eyes closed and she was so close to telling it frightened her. No. This secret wasn't just for herself. Keeping her plan from Nick meant keeping him out of harm's way, in more ways than one. Whatever the Enforcers decided, if they even took note, they would spare him. Whatever the questions that arose from the police, he would remain untouched by suspicion. Liar. She was trying to ignore the most important thing, her most dangerous weakness, that if he knew he'd surely try to persuade her away from her intentions and the argument would throw everything off. Warmly and gently and lovingly he would convince her it was wrong, that mortal justice would even the score. If that failed, he could stop her anyway through sheer strength and determination. And that she would not risk. She claimed no moral authority even in her own mind and would be the first to admit that the imperative that drove her was cold and vengeful. She kissed Nick's hand as he had hers, back and palm, and told him "Don't worry so much, Bats. I'll be all right very soon."

Which is exactly what worried him, because he didn't know why.

"Where is he?" Maura demanded of LaCroix. She'd found the location without any trouble, having begged exhaustion and slipped away from the club. Nick, Schanke, and he rest of their precinct were conducting a citywide search for Kevin, who the attending officers reported had overpowered them. Though Captain Cohen found it difficult to believe that a scrawny 20-something could overcome two armed officers, the cops involved had spotless records even if they'd only been on the force six years between them. Nobody had expected trouble from this kid, so no special arrangements had been made.

LaCroix led Maura down a trash-and-graffiti strewn passageway and unlocked a metal door. "As promised," he announced, standing aside to let her pass.

Well he'd been right, it was kitted out like a Parisian whorehouse, sans whores. A bit overwrought, she felt as she took it in, walls hung in dark heavy drapes with deeply upholstered lounges and couches, huge pillows on the floor. It took her a moment to locate Kevin in the ruin of lush fabrics. She might have found the contrast between the prison and its captive amusing if she'd been in a laughing mood. As it was, it just disgusted her.

Kevin Mitchell lay sprawled semi-conscious across a pile of crushed velvet cushions, head lolling to one side, looking for all the world like an opium addict deep in his amusements. On a low table nearby was an empty wineglass next to a likewise empty carafe. The red stains left behind on the glassware and fabric attested to his recent feed. His condition attested to the power of her blood.

"I confess I was unprepared for his collapse," LaCroix told her, "I suppose that your blood at its most powerful was a bit too much for the wretched boy, it being his first feed."

"His _only_ feed," Maura corrected as she drew closer to peer down at Kevin as a zoo visitor might look at a repellant animal. His torn jeans and "Fuck You" t shirt were wildly out of place in his surroundings but strictly in keeping with what passed for his character.

"You were quite right, by the way, young Mr. Mitchell required almost no persuasion to join me. He is stunningly selfish even by my standards. He swilled your blood like cheap beer, by the way. Frankly I think it's just as well he won't survive beyond this night; he would be so appallingly undisciplined and reckless that the Enforcers would make short work of him anyway."

Maura was only half listening. She stared transfixed at the creature LaCroix had transformed. His characteristically pasty skin was already taking on the translucent quality she'd become familiar with as the look of a newly converted vampire. Her blood was smeared on his chin and mouth; the thought that she'd helped sustain him even briefly sickened her. She looked at her watch merely from habit to see how close it was to sunrise. A lifetime of existing among night dwellers has developed her internal clock to near-vampiric accuracy.

"Where's the door?" she asked, not waiting for an answer as she pulled aside one drape after another. "Your new recruit and I are gonna take a walk." She nudged Kevin roughly with the toe of her boot. "Rise and shine, dude."

He stirred slowly at first, until his master spoke. "Kevin we have a visitor. I believe you know Maura through a mutual friend."

Kevin sat up and struggled to his feet, as if he'd simply smoked too much weed too quickly. It took him a moment to focus; Maura guessed he was still adjusting to his newly heightened senses.

"Oh, wow, yeah, Maura, right." Funny, he still sounded exactly like his mortal self. Then again, Maura had never known anyone on both sides of the mortal divide, so this was a first for her. "Hey, wow, you know about Christopher, man, well, I didn't mean to, you know…" he was well and truly wasted and rather than here his ridiculous struggle to make lame excuses for his crime, Maura cut him off.

"Why don't you tell me all about it outside, okay? You look like you could use," she stopped herself from saying "a little fresh air" and substituted "a change of scenery. You haven't seen the stars through your new eyes yet, have you?" She didn't need to ask him twice.

"Cool, yeah, that'd be cool."

LaCroix graciously drew one of the drapes aside and slid open the bay door that led to the docks outside. By Maura's reckoning it was barely ten minutes until sunrise. Already she could see the faint glow over the horizon. As he stumbled awkwardly behind her she heard Kevin call back to LaCroix, "Shit man, I didn't _think_ we were in fucking Paris!"

The door slid shut behind them with a clang, and she heard the bolt slide home. She was sure LaCroix wouldn't want to witness what would follow; much as her plan had intrigued him it struck a little too close to home. Kevin was blabbering on about "that night" and how the cops didn't know shit and Christopher was his _man_, you know? It was all a fucking mistake. She tried to shut him out, but when he declared for the third time that he "didn't do nothing to hurt Christopher" she turned from the lightening sky and asked him drily,

"So I guess he cut himself, huh? He punched himself in the face, fell down on his own, found a way to bleed out until he died, huh?"

Kevin blinked at her, not quite getting it, but something else got his attention. If he'd forgotten momentarily about his new allergy to daylight, the gathering dawn reminded him now.

"Hey, we better get back inside. LaCroix told me," but he turned to see the locked door that had failed to register moments ago.

"I know what he told you." Maura's voice was as cold as the realization on Kevin's newly immortal face. "See, in just a minute or two that sun is gonna be high enough to fry you where you stand. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars."

Now he rushed to the door, pounded on it. "Hey man, lemme in! This cunt is crazy!" How predictably Kevin, she thought, and imagined LaCroix's grimace of distaste at his vulgar language.

"No dice, Kevin. No escape, no friends to hide behind, no fucking lame excuses to help you weasel out this time." The sun was up now, light bathing the docks. No shadows, nowhere nearby for him to hide, and he didn't know the area well enough to find a place to take cover. Wisps of smoke rose from his clothing and hair as he lunged for her. She dodged easily; he still hadn't found his "vampire legs".

"Surprise, Kevin, 'this cunt' has done you one better than you did Christopher. You left him there alone to die like a dog on the sidewalk, but here I am to keep you company in your final moments. In fact I wouldn't dream of missing it…"

His skin was darkening, beginning to blister, and a guttural whining escaped him in place of the words he would have spoken. His eyes, some mortal vestiges remaining, pleaded with her.

"Forget it," she told him, "the last thing you're gonna see is me, you fucking asshole, sending you to hell because it's the only place you belong. Like you said, there's an upside to everything, and this is mine."

He whirled madly for only a few seconds, the whine rising to a near scream, before igniting as if he were coated in flash powder. Maura stepped back as she watched the flames consume him. It didn't take long; in less than a minute only a greasy pile of ash and half-burnt clothing remained. And the Nike sneakers that Christopher had bought him for Christmas. Maura moved closer now to stand over the ruin of the murderer of her only true mortal friend, breathing through her mouth to shut out the stench. She spit in the center of the smoking pile, smiling ruefully as she heard it sizzle. "Fuck you," she snarled before returning to the bay door. She knocked twice. "Open up, it's over."

At the precinct Nick interviewed one of the transfer cops for the third time that night. The cop was exhausted, mortified by his and his partner's failure to perform what was supposed to be the simplest of tasks.

"I'm telling you, Detective Knight, that's all I remember."

Both this one, Jackson, and his partner Murdock had been decisive in their report of being "overpowered" by Kevin Mitchell, but neither were able to provide any details of what actually happened. Schanke was inclined to believe they were covering each other's butts, but Nick wasn't so sure. Jackson had been in the back seat with Mitchell and his partner had been driving.

"Okay, Jackson, let's come at it from a different direction. What do you remember from just before the escape? What can you tell me about what led up to it?"

"Okay, I'd gotten the suspect into the unit and Murdock was going around to get in the driver's seat. That guy came by and asked what time it was, and that's all that's clear."

Nick perked up. "What 'guy' was that?"

"Well I forgot to mention it before, it didn't seem important because he was just there and gone. Murdock was opening the driver's side door when this guy came up outta nowhere, wanting to know what time it was. I guess Mitchell used that distraction, I dunno." The cop was obviously frustrated with his inability to remember.

"What did this 'guy' look like, Jackson?"

"Well I just got a glimpse… tall. Kinda sick looking, pale, white hair cut short but he didn't look real old."

A realization was dawning, and Nick didn't like it a bit. "Kind of like a pale Marine?"

Jackson eyed him oddly. "Well funny you should put it that way, but yeah. Looked like a kind of albino Marine, but high class-like. Like I said I only caught a glimpse."

Nick was already halfway out the door of the interrogation room. "Thanks, Jackson, you've been a big help." On the way past Schanke he said, "I have a lead, I think. I'll call you," and before his partner could respond he was gone.

Nick floored the Caddy in the direction of home to beat the sunrise, figuring a call to Janette might point him to LaCroix. As certain as he was that his creator had something to do with Mitchell's disappearance, he couldn't imagine why. In any case, he'd be trapped at the loft until the sun went down. When he arrived to find an empty apartment and an undisturbed bed a sudden understanding hit him with unimaginable force. He paced like a caged animal, awaiting Maura's return, tormented by rage and the certainty of what had happened.

Maura and LaCroix said little as they cleared out the warehouse room, throwing the expensive fabrics in a nearby dumpster and leaving the furniture for some unnamed mortal minions to dispose of later. There was little to say, really, after LaCroix mildly inquired, "Are you content with the outcome?" and Maura had answered calmly, "Very." They parted company, LaCroix finding his way back to wherever he dwelt via underground passages. No gratitude was offered or accepted.

Maura spent the day wandering the city and dragged into the loft after sundown just as Nick ended his call to Janette, who had learned of LaCroix and Maura's adventure from LaCroix himself. He set down the phone and turned to face her as she slowly slid the door shut. She was bedraggled, sweaty, dirty from her hurried dockside clean-up with LaCroix, and utterly drained. Her face betrayed no expression at all, while Nick struggled between rage, horror, and disgust over what he'd just heard.

"I thought you'd simply had LaCroix kill him," he told her in a disbelieving voice. "I can hardly imagine you conceived of this… _abomination_." He was genuinely speechless and stood waiting for a response. Maura simply passed by him and slumped in the armchair near the sofa. He followed, stood over her, trembling with anger. "Don't you have anything to say?"

Maura stared up at him blankly. "What is there to say? You know what I did. I interfered in a 'police matter'. I obstructed justice."

His voice rose. "You killed a man, Maura, in the most horrible way imaginable! You took your knowledge of who we are, and you used it to kill a mortal!"

"I killed a _murderer_, Nick. We both know how he would have come out of your 'justice system', after a few years he'd be back out and doing it to someone else."

"How do you get off being judge and executioner? How the hell do you _know_ what he'd do?"

Now Maura sprang to her feet, alight with her own rage. "Because I know _him_, we both do! People like Kevin Mitchell tear through life like drunk drivers, using, excusing, sometimes they kill, sometimes they don't, it's all the same to them. There is no justice, there is no rehabilitation, there is only the next victim down the line."

He spat back in an acid voice, "Oh, so you're saying you were performing a public service. He murdered your only mortal friend, but you were inspired to concoct this elaborately hideous death for the benefit of humanity? Forgive me if I don't consider you Toronto's newest social worker."

She'd been turning away from him, but whipped back around, abandoning any attempt at logic. "All right, it's true! You don't want to hear it, but yeah I _enjoyed_ it! I _loved_ watching him burn, seeing him bang on that door, and the last expression on his fucked-up face told me he couldn't _believe_ that he couldn't weasel out of this one!" Now Nick was backing off, not secure enough in his righteous anger to want to hear more of this. But she followed him, and circled to stay in his face. "I know you, Nick, you'd like to console yourself by believing that LaCroix put me up to this, planted the idea. But he didn't, in fact he took some convincing to get involved. It was all me, Nick, all of it except the conversion and if I could have done that myself I would have. Kevin Mitchell took Christopher from me, from his family, took his life from him for _no fucking reasion_. Don't even dare try to judge me, you and your friends killed for sport for hundreds of years, killed people who deserved another chance. But assholes like Kevin Mitchell deserve nothing, the only thing you can do with them is stop them. So I did, because I could. And I got creative, and took from him what he held so dearly, his certainty he could get away with anything and deserved everything he wanted. His selfishness killed him, Nick, if he'd turned down LaCroix you'd have had no trouble finding him, he was a fucking moron. _He_ made the choice, and when he did that he killed himself. Not that I ever doubted he would, his kind always would. And even if you don't believe anything else, don't fantasize that even you can live long enough to hear me say I'm sorry for what I did. I will never…_ ever_… be sorry for any of it, not if I became immortal and survived to see the earth crumble to dust. Nothing you say, nothing you could imagine saying, will ever make me believe I did wrong." In that moment, Nick knew Maura spoke the absolute truth. The realization that there was no regret, no second thought, not the faintest glimmer of remorse, beggared his imagination. The question was not how to make her see the error she would never recognize, but how Nick was to get his mind around a side of Maura he'd never imagined existed.

"I know what I was, I know what I did before. But I'm finding it impossible to accept that you were capable of this."

"You have no idea what I'm capable of, Nick, because you haven't known me long enough to see how far I can be driven! You know me as I've been since coming here, who I've been and what I've done here, but not what I'm capable of. I've told you things about my past, but you weren't there. Do you suppose I've survived this long on good intentions and optimism? I lied to you as I've lied to others when I had to, yes, I lied and dodged and left you out of this for a million reasons I know are good and you don't have to agree with any of it. It just doesn't matter. It's _done_."

Her tirade was tapering off, and his anger was spent. Nick shook his head slowly as felt cold rage replaced with a bottomless ache. "It matters to me. I believe you wanted revenge, I even believe you wanted to stop Mitchell from using or killing anyone else. But I can't believe you when you say you planned it that way for another reason, that you enjoyed it. It's beyond believing."

Maura wanted to shake him, but held herself back. "Enjoyed it? I told you I loved it. I spit on his ashes, Nick, that's how much I loved it. I probably enjoyed it as much as you did your first kill. I'm just less likely to repeat it. Jesus, Nick, where did you come by the delusion that I'm some sort of guardian angel of truth and light? I've done plenty you only think you know about, and now it's time to face what I really am the way I've faced it in you. Maybe I'm like Janette in that way; I may not brag but I'm not ashamed either. That's hard for you to deal with because being ashamed of one's imperfections is something you seem to admire."

He flinched at that. Maura continued wearily, "I don't want your forgiveness, Nick. There's nothing to forgive. I did what I did, and you can either live with the knowledge or not. But I won't pretend to be sorry. Not ever. Now if you'll excuse me I have to call James Martin and tell him it's over." Even with all that had happened, this gave Nick pause. "Come on, Nick, you know he knows about all of it, about you and the Community. No, I didn't tell him about my plans, but I'll tell him about what happened. And he'll understand it, and he'll agree it was the right thing."

Bereft of any other response, Nick asked her incredulously, "Do you think Christopher would understand?"

Her eyes were dull as she responded in a near-emotionless voice. "Of course he wouldn't. But Christopher is dead, beyond understanding, or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Nick stood staring at Maura, out of words, out of thoughts. "I have to get out of here," he muttered, grabbed his jacket, and raced out the door.

"That might make two of us," Maura said so quietly even he couldn't hear. When he'd gone, she went upstairs and started packing.

"Nicolas, LaCroix had little choice. If he had not helped Maura he is certain she would have gone to someone less… disciplined. She would have brought the Enforcers down on all of us, and herself. This was the lesser of many evils."

Nick sat with Janette in her special, separate chamber. He was so distraught when he'd arrived at Raven she immediately hurried him into the back rooms.

"But Janette, she's become someone I don't know. How could one death have driven someone like her to such despicable acts?"

Janette smiled wryly. "'Despicable' cheri? As despicable as seducing to kill, winning confidence in order to betray it, reveling in the power to do so?" She was not only referring to Kevin Mitchell and he knew it.

"But I've left that behind."

"And so, it appears, has she, but for this obvious lapse."

"Lapse?" His dumfounded countenance seemed to annoy Janette.

"Oh, Nicolas, how quickly you have learned to be self righteous. This killing pales in comparison to our most languid pastimes of years gone by. It cannot be simply the death of a lower-caste killer that upsets you so." No response. "Could it be that you have discovered your loving Maura as capable of 'unforgivable sins' as you have been?"

"She lied to me, Janette, she shared none of this as I tried so hard to help her recover from her loss. All the time she was planning to use our nature to her own ends."

"And how many times have we done such a thing? Don't bother to answer, cheri, I know you have left it far behind. But how many times have you kept the most important things from Maura, have hurt her, nearly caused her death?"

He didn't look ashamed. "I know, I know, and she's forgiven me all of my trespasses."

Janette shook her head. "Oh no, cheri, it is not forgiveness. It is acceptance of what can't be undone. That we are all capable of darker acts than anyone would care to admit, especially those who love us. If such things exist in you, and we know they do, then how can you believe they cannot exist in others? How can you reject another for sharing you own weaknesses?"

Nick reacted with confusion. "Reject? You think I'm going to reject her? Janette, what I'm struggling with here isn't what to do next, it's how to adapt to the existence of this side of Maura I've never considered. She's done something I can never accept, but you're right there is no undoing it, and no chance to convince her it should be. I have to absorb this new knowledge as a part of Maura that can't be ignored or denied, even if it never appears again. It isn't easy to accept this… twisted capability as part of the woman I love."

"She has accepted things in you that no mortal has ever faced willingly, Nicolas. I have no idea how you will 'adapt' to the fact that your Maura is prey to the same dark imperfections you have struggled for so long to abandon. That unlike you she has no regrets must make accepting them that much more difficult. I only know, as you do, that you have no choice but to do so. I am sorry, cheri, I have no other answers for you."

Nick returned late into the night to find Maura sitting quietly in the living room, several packed bags by her side. She appeared to be waiting patiently for his return. "I can get the rest of my stuff moved to the club by the end of the week," she told him. She misread his silence. "Or sooner, I guess, if you want me to." The matter-of-factness of her belief she was no longer welcome in his life brought Nick to the edge of tears.

"Oh no," he murmured, kneeling in front of her. "What's this? You can't think I want you to go."

She blinked, confused. "But what I did, I lied to you, I betrayed you. I used our connection in the worst way. I've crossed a line, Nick, I know I have. I knew I would, but I made my choice. And I know I've burnt up every reason you had for loving me right alongside Kevin Mitchell."

Nick rested his hands on her knees, stared into her eyes. "No, no, how can you imagine that? How many lines have I crossed, Sweet, how many lies did I tell before I learned better? Haven't you been willing to believe there's more to me than my mistakes? How many times have you accused me of not believing in you, but you can decide that this is what I want?" He gestured toward her packed things and when she didn't answer he reached his hands out to surround her face, and brought his own to rest against her cheek.

"How many times have I said 'I love you', do you think?"

"Hundreds…" she murmured, "thousands?"

He drew back a few inches to look in her eyes again. "Then which of those words didn't you understand? What did you hear that I didn't say? I-love-you, that's all, there's no 'in spite of', or 'until', or 'but'. I could no more want you to leave because of this than I could survive a stake through the heart. Okay, I admit it's gonna be very hard to reconcile what you've done with the Maura I'd decided you were. But not impossible. It's me that will have to adapt, not you. I wish I could change your mind about what you've done, but I know I can't. If it's a thing we will never agree on, so be it. There's bound to be a way to live with that."

Maura was struggling to absorb all this. She could see no parallel with his several transgressions in their time together; his were sins of omission, of ignorance. Hers was planned to the last detail, gone into with eyes wide open. With one act Maura had negated everything about herself that she felt Nick had ever seen in her, but he was saying it would be okay? "How can you possibly stand to even look at me after what I've done? How can you possibly love me?" They were rhetorical questions, because she couldn't imagine any answers that would make sense.

Nick stood and held his hands out to her. "How could I not? There's no logic here, Sweet. Just me. And I love you, and only death can stop me." He shrugged, a bit sheepish. "Not even that." He remembered what Natalie had told him, that grief can drive a person to crazy things. Maybe that was how he'd think of this in time. Temporary, grief-induced insanity.

"Come on, Maura," he coaxed her as she sat staring up at him. "Why throw away what we've got because of what we lost." Illusions, innocence, whatever. It just wasn't enough to make him turn away, and it struck Maura now with ringing clarity as she heard the "grand philosophy" she'd intoned far more than once. She let him take her hands and pull her to her feet, and when she stepped into his embrace there was the unmistakably physical sensation of something cold and sharp being drawn from inside her. She pressed her face into his shoulder with a silent sigh of exhausted relief as he rocked them side to side.

After a moment she muttered, "Poor Bats, I guess I turned out to be less than you bargained for."

She felt his smiling kiss in her hair as his arms tightened around her and he whispered gently in her ear.

"Sssh… you're nobody you shouldn't be."


End file.
